On the subject of my Drabbles & other ideas
by Livyatan Kalmanrata
Summary: a place to put plot bunnies before they grow any further. feel free to adopt / steal / take as a challenge / be inspired by, any of these as long as you inform me of doing so.
1. Harry Potter 1

**Harry Potter bunnies**

in which harry dies

1- ward theory:  
The Dursleys are horrible people yadda yadda. Poor little Harry dies of starvation, beatings, and neglect before primary school. The blood wards around the property are overworked to protect unloving muggles, and thus treats Harry's death as a sacrifice. The horcrux attempts to prevent its vessels destruction (death) and as such Harry's soul is absorbed into the wards, instead of simply fueling them, and he begins living through them. the Dursleys proverbially sweep Harry's death under the rug and act as if nothings is wrong, eventually all but forgetting the entire thing. What exactly happens to Harry's body is up for takes. Dumbledore doesn't know anything because of observed incompetence (the wards interfere with magical monitors of Harry being alive if Dumbles had any pre-Hogwarts). Spirit!Harry grows up better adjusted from observing the positive changes that no longer having a scapegoat meant for the Dursleys. The Hogwarts admission letters are addressed to simply Number 4 Privet Drive. Hagrid is sent in an attempt to investigate, but leaves after finding no Harry, thinking he somehow had the wrong address or something. September 1st having passed with no mention our hero, Dumbles goes to investigate himself, and rips the fact that Harry has been dead for years directly from the Dursleys minds. Harry silently observes Dumbledore (nearly) have a stroke and leave listlessly, wondering whether he should try anything. Possibly Harry hitching a ride on one of Dumbles' many knickknacks and coming to Hoqwarts, or eventually finding some other way there. Or Dursleys leaving and putting the apartment on sale, only for it to be bought by magicals. If Harry goes to Hogwarts, then she (the castle) would be able to converse with Harry, and would assume the role of Harry's mother.  
what happens afterwards up for takes.

2- ghouls & goblins:  
the Dursleys are horrible people yadda yadda. Poor little Harry dies of starvation, beatings, and neglect well before Hogwarts. Accidental magic / the blood wards, and the horcrux prevent Harry's soul from vacating his body, turning it into some form of undead/demon/fey. "Reborn", Harry escapes before the wards catch on and collapse, or escapes and the wards eventually collapse. whether or not Harry claws through the fragile enough cupboard, or discovers a new racial teleport ability affects his future. Claws, and Harry becomes "feral" and lives in forests. Only speaking with snakes keeps him with a remotely human mindset. Teleport, and Harry would eventually find some form hidden community of those at least similar to him.  
Minutia regarding the news of his death breaking, the search for him, and possibly finding him, and the consequences of all these are up for takes.

3- Deific Interference:  
Harry being envenomed by the 1000s years old Basilisk was finally too much for the rest of the powers-that-be to be forced to accommodate via prophecy. Desiring to make the fate-manager suffer for their misdeeds regarding Harry, they let him live, or resurrect, but as the amalgam of, both Voldemort's horcruxes that were present, and basilisk and phoenix blood due to the venom and the tears mixing with the blood protection. most likely also give a massive magical boost via deus-ex-ward mechanic as shown below, as the other deities don't want to use the horcrux-link as an excuse to dodge the fruits of magical weightlifting. Harry wakes up extremely disoriented by influx of random memories a la Riddle, and starts being smart immediately. He does go to "report" to Dumbles', as not to do so would be the height of suspicious, but he avoids eye contact at all times. Harry also sees right through Ron's gitness and breaks that up, has a spine in general, starts exercising and studying, seeks to replace Hermione as the best friend; if not girlfriend, and re-evaluates his life in general. Returning to privet drive and examining the wards, surreptitiously slapping off the flimsy ministry surveillance ward, and setting the Dursleys to their place. Visiting Gringotts for inquiries over the summer, and putting things on the right tracks.

in which logic is applied

1- accidental magic:  
suspension of "but Harry is a pure child with the power of love and plot" required.  
accidental magic happens due to & during extreme emotions. Harry was systematically starved, slaved, scorned, bullied, beaten, and what not that means abused, his entire childhood at the Dursleys. Meanwhile he is magically powerful enough to cast a corporeal patronus of absurd power (like, 100 dementors flee from it) at 3rd year, with a remarkable lack of happy memories, and has the willpower to shrug off a death eater's imperius curse at 4th year.  
The only way for the Dursleys to have survived their behavior with him would be for Harry's magic to have been sealed since they took him in. Even if that is the case, Harry still had accidental magic, particularly something as difficult as apparating, meaning that whatever block couldn't hold it all in. Which makes it implausible that the worst an abused child would have caused would be changed hair color on a merely upsetting substitute teacher. Considering Marge was as large and abusive as Vernon, had her large and violent dogs, and was not being spared accidental magic after Harry's magic had already had 2 years to stabilize with wand use and education, we can also disregard Harry having been deeply enough conditioned to subservience before his magic managed to kill them.  
tl:dr the Dursleys should either have died very early, or learned against their abusiveness. plot bunny about Dursleys having died by karma early during Harry's childhood, or treating Harry as if he were the dark lord.

2- deus-ex-ward:  
derived from #1. If argued that the blood wards were draining enough to prevent accidental magic within the house, then Harry should either have died (less than 2 years old when the wards begun draining), become a squib (same reason as before), or have the "magical muscle" to show for having survived it with his magic intact. Consequences: unsuited wand(s) explode while matching for a wand, at least Ollivanders wand shop would have been destroyed, if not Diagon alley as well. Harry is the magical equivalent of a high yield nuclear reactor / bomb, and as such is treated with equal care.

3- Obscurials:  
derived from # 1 & 2. Harry is an obscurial, but the nature of the blood wards around the house to also protect Petunia suppressed the obscurus. The obscurus is what took the brunt of maintaining the wards and is absurdly powerful. " A power he knows not...", the obscurus breaks free in the ministry battle, as seeing his friends fall in battle pushes Harry over the edge, and pretty much slaughters all the death eaters for releasing its wrath. Alternatively the obscurus coming through in third year, when Harry confronts Sirius Black, his parents supposed murderer, or during the triwizard tournament and when faced with the threat of the dragon, or generally messing up important events by introducing an unstoppable force of destruction to them.

* * *

a hot take

Dumbledore was neither senile nor malicious; he was in fact severely traumatized by the "difficulties" in his love life with Grindewald. In essence he subconsciously projects an image of his former lover over every openly malicious or otherwise dark wizard. Because of the patriarchal nature of Wizarding Britain, he rarely met dark witches, and with the majority of Voldemort's Death Eaters being men it is trivial for his delusion to manipulate him. Because of this he views every opportunity to grant a dark wizard redemption as personal self forgiveness for letting Grindewald become what he did. From his delusions we can also infer that Grindewald was the dominant figure, as Dumbles seems personally affronted by the mere thought of in any way prompting anyone he redeems to change their life choices or behavior. The combination of the highly prestigious position of Hogwarts' headmaster combined with the equally prestigious yet much more ceremonial positions of Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump soundly ensured that no wizarding mind-healer could overcome their awe of him enough to treat his trauma only exacerbating things.

Tl:dr Dumbles has stockholm syndrome to every dark wizard bad boy ever because of his disastrous break up with Gellert.

-Alternatively Dumbles was exactly as dark as Grindewald, but much much more cautious; and Grindewald's last curse in their duel was a hasty personality reverser, to ensure he wouldn't suffer as much as he would under the Dumbledore he knew. The slightly botched spell instead turned Dumbledore into the demented do-gooder who would lock their lover into an inescapable prison of their design to slowly rot as the world forgets them and moves on.


	2. shameless Worldbuild 1 repost

terminology  
•cast = general term for using a spell  
•form = compartmentalization, preparing spell slots  
•weave = specific term for spontaneously casting magic  
•shape = slowly weaving, casting time between 1 round & 1min, see weave  
•magic compartment = academic jargon for spell slots  
•reserve = magical power inside the magical core, generally difficult to access  
•magic pool = activated magic outside the core, easy to use, spell points (/pact magic)  
•vance method spellcraft = magic use through compartments of specific valency, spell slot based magic  
•vancian magic = see vance method magic.  
•reactive magic = "organic" magic use through a single power pool, spell point based magic (/pact magic)  
•valence = spell slot level, a spell can be upcasted at a higher valency  
•circle = minimum spell level, a spell will always be of its lowest circle  
•threshold = highest sustainable valence for an individuals magic, casting above ones threshold is extremely straining, ability damage to con. and all mental ability scores.  
•transvalency = (having) epic caster levels  
•transvalent = epic caster, or spell  
•transcendency = (having) epic martial levels  
•transcendent = epic martial, or maneuver/technique

(Qfic1993 had this wonderfull idea about such terminology, so i'll expand from what i read in hp & the planar professor, ̶b̶l̶a̶t̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶b̶ shoutout to them! /u/5426201/Qfic1993)

Vancian is just one approach to magic, it isn't exclusive to anything. sorcerers innately have magic pools, but its easier to form specific slots to call upon.  
I like to use of SCAM in dnd OC:s rather than specific mental ability scores is because magic use and aptitude isn't "truly" that simple.

"Harry Potter"-like magic are generally cantrips / transvalent, as their understanding of magical energy is lacking. On that note, transvalent magic is primarily based on 2 skills, the appropriate Knowlege(skill) and Spellcraft. Understanding what changes you wish to effect upon the world, and the skill to enforce them. Harry Potter spells are a lightshow because they primarily get their energy from resonating in external magic fields, rather than making use of the person's own magic ([sleep] isn't described with any sfx, but "stupefy" is a bright red beam). HP Wands are absurdly overpowered magical foci, as their bonus makes both the knowledge and spellcraft skills almost entirely irrelevant in casting their magic, as the wand translates even a vague desire into the proper spell with the right components, as with Ron utterly failing to levitate in class due to carelessness, but succeeding against the troll, and Harry casting sectumsempra without the faintest idea what it does. This has naturally led to the absurd stagnation and incompetence of the HP magical world, as the wand answer all their problems and leaves the actual solutions irrelevant.

* * *

standard multiverse theory for most of my OC:s

MTG-like multiverse of planar clusters as worlds. Some worlds have much fewer planes than others (minimum of one), some have rich cosmologies like d&d. The Blind Eternities, the Primordial Void, Unreality etc. etc. is not as harmful to existent beings as in canon, the ability to survive it depends on the strength of will / self-awareness of the individuals soul. Inanimate objects have primitive souls, and could not survive unreality without specific care being taken to ensure it, and most "people" aren't simply prepared to "flex" their willpower, not to mention capable of exerting it to the required extent.  
Planeswalkers are a semi-naturally occurring mutation of the soul that automatically creates a strong "identity bubble" around the planeswalker and their inanimate property, and streamlines the progress of navigating unreality, forming the "illusion / appearance" of the blind eternities. Planeswalkers are not immune to the rigors of more conventional / intra-world, planar travel, as their id-bubble only protects them against unreality.

The Far Realm is a higher dimensional "super"-plane that encompasses the d&d cosmology, acting as a largely inaccessible host / base -plane for it, and strengthening the existential boundaries against unreality. For example, "warlock of the magus world"'s astral plane performs a similar function, but also impedes planar travel within the world. Base-planes like these remain beneath planeswalker notice, unless they know what to look for. Whether or not a planeswalker would deem a world unhabitable because of a "somewhat" hostile base-plane is up to change & attention to detail on their part.

* * *

Far realms and their inhabitants

Eldritch entities from the far realms, and even their native cousins, are aberrant and unsettling. Often they can be fought very simply like any other dire beast, with their particular quirks. Very quickly can things devolve into cosmic horror as well. True denizens of the Eldritch realms are out of phase with the rest of reality. Something about their being rotated on an axis that should be left alone, their motions lagging behind normal time flow and their thoughts skipping ahead of it and vice versa.

For each dimension and combination of is there a waveform quality, for each dimension and combination of is there a polarization rotation, and any disparity from the norm quickly becomes apparent. Things quickly become very complex, leading to the infinite rich variety of eldritch horrors. Eldritch magic tends to be deliberately out of touch from the natural order for greater effect. The perverse complexities straining the psyche while awareness of them opens the mind to unwelcome whispers.  
Rotation of the polarization can alter the extent to which everything else can physically affect the eldritch being, and offset in the waveform phase can change the nature of the interactions and their exact locations. Hence strikes glancing off and energies washing away before an elder being, while their limbs touch directly at your internal organs and burn with saccharine rot.

negative dimensions, utterly unknown, risk madness by even contemplating. potentially merely as antimatter to normal dimensions, which is likely unlikely that.  
0th dimension, existence or possibly time, a single infinitely small point either is or is not.  
1st dimension, length  
2nd dimension, width  
3rd dimension, height  
4th dimension, no existing or readily comprehensible word, think about everything you are and can see being stretched into a direction you cannot even imagine. Often mistaken for time.  
5th and up dimensions, repeat 4th dimension ad nauseam. all positive numbers are dimensions of 'physical' existence.

imaginary dimensions, this is where the fun begins, trying to reconcile facets of existence perceptible to us with imaginary numbered dimensions is an interesting philosophical exercise. possibly imaginary 1st dimension is time, with hilarious and nauseating complexifications with further dimensions, similar in relation to the relation between the first three physical ones.

Negative dimensions coupled with imaginary dimensions, purely mathematically both, are the true reasons why mortals regularly go insane with mere glimpses into the true workings of the universe. Greater than 3rd dimensions may be utterly beyond our perception, but they are no less beyond our comprehension than three dimensions to a shape on a mathematical plane, or two to a segment of a line in a flat coordinate system.

* * *

On the classifications of the use of supernatural forces

(descending power)  
1\. True Reality Alteration  
The Blatantly unfair power, those wielding it find altering reality to their whims being as simple and natural as breathing. The reach of T.R.A is practically unlimited, they can alter anything they are aware of, can be aware of anything they desire, and can even alter their own minds as they please. The only thing known to in any way hinder T.R.A:s is the perilous "environment" of the Primordial Void, as it is not reality, and thus outside the ability of these godlike entities. A true reality alterer may still freely enter the Blind Eternities, but do so at their own risk. The not-nature of Unreality makes it difficult to prepare against even if one knows of the danger, and power-tripping forays outside existence are known to actively cull the small ranks of t.r.a:s, keeping all existence more or less stable away from their influence. Nevertheless, some survive the journey, and find their abilities restricted to themselves while outside existence. A t.r.a can survive indefinitely in any environment that is not immediately lethal, and whatever the unknown numbers of them that lurk in there are up to is unknown. It is speculated, that survivors add to existing worlds by leeching from realities "around" them, and multiplying the existential mass they accrue, and combining it to a world according to their vision. Another theory proposes that outside the limitations of time itself, a t.r.a would strip deficiencies from their minds to the point that their intelligence becomes perfectly chaotic from an existent perspective, and that they then simply junction into the "background" of the Blind Eternities, willingly losing anything recognizable to us as a sense of self. However it goes, aren't we glad that these aren't common.

2\. Limited Reality Alteration  
Essentially the same as above, but with a seemingly arbitrary restriction upon their abilities, that they cannot remove. Most commonly, this restriction is the ability to alter their own minds in any way. L.R.A:s are no less dangerous than their true compatriots, but owing to their restrictions, much easier to contain. Most often, as is the case of mental limitation, the containment of a l.r.a is as simple as a subtly applied geas, as active mind magic becomes a part of the mind, and thus outside their ability to remove. After neutralization, the character of the l.r.a can be judged without undue haste, and the fairly common death-sentence is carried out by adding more mind magic and dominating them to remove their life from existence. L.R.A:s without this convenient limitation are identified as soon as possible, so that "drafted", as in under geas, L.R.A:s can be sent out to combat them. It is possible for l.r.a:s to work around their limitations, even if it isn't possible to overcome it. A l.r.a with the inability to alter existing elemental metals, for example, might still be able to "create" metals in any shape, or "disintegrate" any quantity of metal, but they could not affect any 'existing' metal in any other way.

* * *

reality alteration is the highest order power, detecting it at work is entirely up to sloppiness of the alterer, and attempts to trace its origins would be for naught if not for an extremely classified benefactor L.R.A that is devoting their entire time to adding an "edit. history" to all realities their awareness can touch, and constantly refreshing their work to see if someone has wised up to this. Without this specific alteration, any altering appears to spontaneous, yet emergent behavior of the reality in question.

* * *

3\. Deep Magic, True Reality Manipulation  
Deep Magics are the methods of altering the world around oneself by affecting the very reality around oneself. Much like its lesser brother, Deep Magic is something that has to be learned to be wielded, and often cannot be wielded by just anyone either. The exact method of function of deep magic remains unknown, even if it is understood that it affects changes to the reality from outside it. Because of this "external behavior" deep magic leaves massive "tracks" in its path, following which is elementary with even the most basic understanding of tracing such. It is reasonably possible, however, to affect subtlety into the use of deep magic, reducing the tracks and even concealing the supernatural means in their entirety. Often extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to directly quantify as a force, even if it seems at a first glance to function much like energy based magic.

4\. True Psychics, Limited Reality Manipulation  
True Psychics, much like deep magic, cause supernatural effects by affecting reality directly. Unlike deep magic, True Psychics affect these changes by imposing the will of the wielder directly onto the "floating values" of the reality around them. For the few capable of observing these layers of existence, tracing a user of true psychics is trivial, as their existential signature is there clear for them to see. This transparency is by all appearances in trade for the fact that wielders of true psychics are often much more intuitive with comprehending their powers, and wield even newly discovered abilities with much the same proficiency that newborn animals show when they simply walk off seconds after birth. This greater intuition however, often limits true psychics in developing new abilities, and naturally specializes them into the powers they already have. Often even less possible to quantify than deep magic, due to direct ties to willpower and mental qualities.

* * *

reality manipulation, as explained above, is most obvious against the backdrop of the rest of reality, and potentially no less dangerous than reality alteration, given enough time for development. the fact, that even when an inherent quality, reality manipulation is mostly a learned skill means that wielders of it exhibit insurmountable god-complexes less often than reality alterers.

* * *

5\. Magic  
any energy based magics such as d&d or wh40k.

6\. Psionics  
any technical "subsection" of energy based magics, such as in d&d, or a limited-in-scope ability to simply directly manipulate the energies in question.

7\. Bio-Energy, Ki, etc. including sci-fi technology  
any preternatural but "nonmagical" means similar to energy based magics.

8\. Sleight of Hand, aikijutsu  
any plausibly deniable means similar to energy based magic. a well placed strike can split boulders, harmonic motion can bend rebar against soft tissue, a practiced trickster can target attention blindspots to make small objects disappear.


	3. more harry potter 2

**Harry Potter X-overs ideas**

work in progress

Star Wars

Independent sith!Harry:  
Harry discovers star wars franchise as a child and uses the force to explain his strange abilities to himself. Frustration (really an understatement) with the Dursleys means that he can't reach the peaceful mediation of the jedi. Frustration with being unable progress with jedi training makes him realize there were the "bad guys" as well. Recalling what he did of the sith, and finding out more as he could, he realizes its the perfect choice for him. Unlike his attempt at becoming jedi, his sith training progresses at an absurd rate, as he unknowingly benefits from the hate-riddled horcrux in his head. Despite increasing hate and rage, Harry decides to keep a low profile in public, so that no conniving, hiding jedi would discover him, as if he has the ability, there are surely others. He progresses so quickly, in fact, that succeeding at casting force lightning is what makes him realize he hasn't done anything about his living conditions yet. Choosing a saturday morning to confront his "family", so that they'd have Sunday worth of time to make themselves presentable to the public again, he throws Petunia around with force grip and -push, force chokes Vernon to submission, and cast force lightning at Dudley to ensure the lesson goes through his thick skull. The record set straight, he claims Dudley's "second" bedroom, as he finds the one he sleeps in tainted by his presence.  
Living like a king (tyrant) within the house, and offering nothing but increased confidence and his true academic competence in public, Harry makes the Dursleys absolutely miserable. Looking up an advertisement for martial arts practice at a local gym, Harry coerces the Dursleys to admit him there, and quickly whips himself into proper shape under guidance of the instructors. The instructors see Harry as an unusually intense kid, but see nothing really worrying as Harry is skilled at hiding his true nature. Between this and Hogwarts, Harry cares little for his inferiors, but has a quick temper and is easily angered, and works his frustration through the day by discreetly sabotaging bullies whenever he sees them, making them trip over convenient, if doubtful, obstacles and things like that.  
Getting the Hogwarts letter, Harry interrogates Petunia for all she knows, and even rips out small amounts of information she had forgotten from her mind in the progress. Putting on a discreet public disguise, he goes to investigate Diagon Alley, discovers his fame at the book shop, and his heritage at Gringotts. Harry asks the goblins the right questions, finds out why he came to be at the Dursleys and all that, and is emancipated as a heir in his position should be on the spot, seizes all inherited assets, places a warrant for all missing articles, and puts a Gringotts legal team to bleed all they can from the "Harry Potter and -" book series's authors; last four done discreetly, of course. The goblins are obviously overjoyed at the amount suffering they get to cause at the courts. Harry attempts cloak himself with the force, and re-enters the alley to do his shopping. First things first, buying his wand from Ollivander's, who, as fortune would have it, doesn't recognize Harry because of his force cloak, sith training changing his aura, and muggle disguise. Harry is barely compatible with the holly wand, and Ollivander grudgingly sells it to him, as no other wand he would sell a schoolkid matched at all. Harry buys practical, but only the best quality of anything. Naturally he buys a broomstick to try, as well as actual contraband from Knockturn Alley, including an unregistered spare wand. Eventually, after buying ample supplies, he returns to Gringotts to pick up an untraceable portkey to a Potter house somewhere. After waking up feeling immensely exposed at his new house, Harry grudgingly decides to return to privet drive for the time being (unknowingly back to under the wards).  
Harry's training picks up again as he gets Voldemort and Dumbledore as targets for his hate as well. Dumbledore first gets a bad feeling for the situation when an overly neatly written acceptance letter with proper formal nomenclature arrives from the estranged chosen one, but forgoes investigating, thinking Petunia must have overcome her discomfort for magic for her nephew's sake and kept him up with his magical heritage. Mildly displeased by this turn of events, Dumbledore pops one of his special lemon drops into his mouth to contemplate how his plans would change to accommodate Harry being knowledgeable of his roots. (Ultimately nothing changes until Harry loses his cover in the far future.)  
At King's Cross Harry effortlessly finds the barrier due its magical / force presence, and boards the train long before the Weasley's arrive. Claiming a compartment, and sitting down to meditate, Harry lets quiet people join him and stay in compartment. Ron is neither quiet nor particularly tactful, and Harry "forcefully" throws him out of compartment when he finds his way there. Some time afterwards, Neville and Hermione join him, but conversation remains sparse. Talk coming to houses, Harry remarks, how ambitious it is of Hermione to seek to emulate the "greatest wizard of all time", and perhaps she belongs in slytherin; and that there is no "scaredycat"-named house where they sort cowards so he wouldn't know where Neville was going to end up in (or something along those lines).  
Entering Hogwarts Harry gets to enjoy the aural side of things, but quickly finds the excessively mothering, light-riddled presence of Hogwarts irritating to spend time in. At the sorting the immensely light dominant, and immensely powerful aura of Dumbledore puts "the fear of god" into him by its mere presence, and he ends up in Gryffindor just to avoid suspicion.

Multi

Modern runes:  
less cohesive all together, put central idea is a magically inclined Harry that explores the limits of magic by employing runes and ideas from muggle fiction as well.  
In particular, the effects of different caryll runes from bloodborne in HP-verse. For example, Wrackspurts and most other things Luna speaks of are perfectly real, but require bloodborne-esgue insight "score" to be able to even see. Luna's insight score is of course a complex irrational number, and thus she can see all she wishes to see and avoid the nasties. By employing clothing / equipment with caryll runes inscribed, the person would be at a constant risk of gaining insight, and placing the runes directly on the body would simply cause insight, in addition to their normal / adjusted effects.


	4. an idea for an au HP location

Guardians of the Nameless Shores

* * *

The Nameless Shores is the name of a hypermassive expanded space placed in a loosely Harry Potter setting. If a trunk that would just fit a single body, could be expanded into a large pit, a single trunk could be made to hold several separate "spaces", and the tracks of the Hogwarts Express be isolated from muggle London, then what exactly would the limit of spacial expansion be?  
The premise is based on a _smart, _and fairly powerful, and most importantly enterprising wizard setting out during the age of discovery, locating, and claiming and warding several leyline nodes in less populous areas of the world, and keying those to spatial manipulation wards.  
Take a large plot of land and place three borders around it. Expand the space within the first border as far as possible, while keeping it possible to shrink the space within the second border to nothing; the space within the third border is then expanded until it is mostly as wide the area would have been without the entire mess. Add some fairly perverse mathematics, or -cough- arithmancy, to curve this space and otherwise tweak it as necessitated by the sheer scope of it. And finally, setting up other examples of such spaces around the world, and connecting them together, and you have an entire planet for yourself.  
Living full-time inside an expanded space is considered a bad idea, because of the possibility and consequences of one collapsing, and thus massive monolithic wardstones with ever-vigilant guardians and minders are necessary.

The master of the Nameless Shores is referred to as the Amaranth Arbiter, who after declaring himself a dark lord, spent most of his natural life in secrecy, setting up the support structures for the deformed space, and engineering their guardians. The declaration of being a dark lord, followed by a few unsolicited murders, was to make sure that the ministries around the world would suppress information about his past to prevent others from following in his footsteps, which was important for the secrecy of his "personal" space. Nearing the end of his natural life, the Amaranth Arbiter turned life extension magic and rituals, then to immortality rituals. How exactly he achieved his immortality is not known, but it is rumored that he managed to improve the horcrux creation ritual enough to be a agreeable means of shedding mortality.  
Over time, the Nameless Shores became increasingly fantastic compared to the natural world. The lacking numbers of pesky wizards, or human for that matter, began drawing many fey beings, creatures, and critters through the veils of the feyrifts into the new material world. This lead to increased biodiversity among the magical animals, and brought the fantastic tales of the fey folk into the everyday life of those few permitted entry to the Nameless Shores.  
The inflow of the fey entering and settling in to the Nameless Shores caused a minor quirk in its spatial structure, where its borders with the real space are not as absolute. At that point, the Amaranth Arbiter had already settled into insufferable power in his realm, and thus permitted it continue, for entertainment of unsuspecting visitors if nothing else. The blurring of the spatial boundaries makes it possible for the chaotic nature of accidental magic and magical travel mishaps to take their mages across the boundary, into the new world unknown to them.

* * *

Great Beasts of draconic proportions and qualities, The guardians safeguard and oversee the monolithic keystones that anchor the Nameless Shores to the rest of the earth and maintain the spatial deformation wards. The guardians are all half-spiritual lifeforms that cannot be permanently slain on their own, much like the interpretation of jabberwockies as guardians of their forests that "respawn" should their body be slain. Following the aforementioned interpretation, the guardians are sentinel spirits given mythical flesh, that are bound to the wardstones rather than forests or such biomes.  
-The fabled near immunity to spells had been traded for merely extreme resistance, in order dodge particular vulnerability to vorpal weaponry. Whiffling is a method of spatial travel where a means of teleportation is seamlessly merged into physical movement. Burbling is a soul-based life eroding magic that uses the sound as its vector, and adapts to overcome an external sound if its too repetive.  
-The bestial guardians share many features across their varied features. All have a predatory body structure of bulky yet lithe musculature, all have minor details that would make someone think of them as dragons, or draconic in origin, and all are large enough to devour a man with ease. Terrestrial guardians mostly take after some form beast reasonably local to the area they inhabit, African animals are featured in guardians located there, but not in guardians on american continents, for example.  
-No known magical beast has been made a guardian, and no unidentified magical beast either. The Amaranth Arbiter deemed it too much a liability that any such beast could be known or studied by any measure. Thus any guardian that was not wholly synthesized, was at least heavily modified from any species it once belonged to.  
-Some guardians, if in nothing else then in homage to familiar myths, are humanoid in shape. These guardians are genrally less resilient than their bestial brethren, but far more of a threat in return.  
-An iconic form of guardian anywhere near a sophont community, is the reaper, a personification of death. Reapers are mostly made as highly sophisticated undead constructs, or "inferi", as the uninitiated know them. Being raised as this kind of "artificial" undead, rather than the more natural zombie, ghast, wight, etc. gives a level of leeway with the base corpse; most all reapers have their skin replaced by lethifold hide, their bones by the skeletal pieces of dementors, and their muscles with that of a thestral's.

Humanoid Guardians: lack whiffling, burbling, and the unreasonable spell resistance.  
\- Grim Reaper, a skeletal figure shrouded by black robes, a large hourglass and a worn tome hanging by a chain at its side, and wielding a scythe seemingly made of bone. Grim Reaper is mostly composed of cadaverous ashes held in shape, and thus almost all physical attacks merely phase through them. The scythe, in addition to an enchantment inspired by the vorpal sword, is similarly insubstantial and glides through anything in its path without resistance, even if it fails to cut through. The robes enable them to turn invisible and hide their existence with nearly the same potency as a fidelius. The hourglass holds a large quantity of time-sand, and enables time travel to the past by as small an unit as 10 seconds and as large as a day, and up to the same limit of 5 uses at a time. Grim Reaper's artificial intelligence is designed to be immune to the identity paradox of observing future-selves, and by combining its invisibility with its ability to time travel, it can feign untraceable, unblock-able teleportation. The tome holds an enchantment that causes the perception of time to sporadically stretch and compress, decreasing the opponents ability to react or judge speed and distance.

\- Thanatos, a pale youth clothed in black, a crown of poppies swarming with languid butterflies on his head, a sword sheathed at his side, and carrying a torch tipped with a smoldering cinder upside down. Thanatos is heralded by a wide narcotic aura, similar in strength to the aura of a hundred dementors. The shroud of butterflies around their head has a powerful compulsion on it, and most that look upon it are confounded to lower their guard and stare at it. The torch is powerfully anti-magic, and shatters most shields and wards like thin ice. The sheath is magically isolating, to hide the terror of the sword, which ritually blessed by an untold number of human sacrifices, and kills swiftly with even the most trivial cut.

\- Dullahan, a headless humanoid clad in night black full plate with a black cloak, a ghostly flame arising from the neck taking the shape of an amalgam between a a skull and a jack o' lantern, a shield with the motif of a rotting face on its arm, wielding a spine like whip, and riding a demonic black horse. The whip behaves more as a tentacle than a weapon, and has powerful rotting and withering curses on it. The shield can emit a sepulchral scream that causes fear as if flash-exposed to a hundred dementors, in all who hear it, and alternatively it can conjure a gallon of blood that does the same, but continuously, and only to those soaked in it. The horse, while weaker than solitary beast guardians, has all the baseline abilities from the jabberwocky package, and its rider can benefit from them.

\- Gorgon Siren, a rapturously beautiful woman with snakes for hair, able to sprout wings, wicked sharp talons, and fusing their legs into a mermaids fin. Has a tremendously powerful version of veela allure, and is able to further boost and extend it with singing. Eye-contact can cause petrification if they so will, or alternatively can cast a light from their eyes that petrifies what it directly falls upon. They may also switch the vectors for their active allure and petrification around, for example causing their singing to petrify those that hear it. In divergence from the common myth, none of their abilities can be turned against them by for example a mirror surface. The talons are quite obviously magically sharp, and they leave behind festering and unhealing wounds. They are also equipped with a few heavily enchanted swords, spears, bows and quivers of arrows. All weapons cause petrification, and wound stone with the same ease as flesh. Arrows and spears are enchanted to petrify themselves into dense stone in mid-flight, causing them to strike with much increased weight when hitting. While the siren is able to draw any of their bows with deceptive ease, they are in fact more than twice too draw-heavy for human use.

**WORK IN PROCESS**  
Bestial Guardians: all have access to whiffling, all burble passively, all are unreasonably spell resistant.  
\- Hippopotamus skull dragon, like imgur com / I3xxXv5. Body is akin to that of a massive crocodile mixed with a rhino, with larger limbs and a pronounced upper body. Fire-breath is fairly standard, but the flames are light and linger a relatively long time, permitting the dragon to truly blanket the ground with them.

\- tarasque, a mix of d&d tarasque and an alligator snapping turtle. Tarasque is impressively invulnerable due to the spell reflective and nearly unbreakable shell and scales. Tarasque does not have a fire breath, but does have a heat emission "breath attack", where they vomit a denser than air cloud of plasma. This breath attack is devastating, but has a short effective range. Capable of burrowing through earth as if diving through water.

\- Nundu mod, a nundu with an emaciated humanoid face, strands of shaggy longer hair over its natural fur, patterns of decayed heads and skulls on its fur, and prehesile claws on its toes. Greater spell resistance than even the standard nundu, and a hide comparable to dragonhide. The disease breath is made toxic enough to rival basilisk venom, and blessed with the symbolic virulence and lethality of the black death. As such the breath corrodes materials and magic it comes into contact with, and causes horrible and painful boils to erupt all around the body while the extremities turn gangrenous and begin to wither. The nundu mod is moderately capable of manipulating the area its breath occupies, causing it to shrink, expand, or simply directing it elsewhere, such as straight upwards.

\- Tarantula dragon, a tarantula based spider of draconic proportions. Doesn't breath fire, but can spray rapidly solidifying webbing, or a violently boiling and / or highly toxic liquid from its fangs. Webbing has a magical effect where it rapidly mends any breaks that manage to occur, and causes quick exhaustion and great tiredness in anything caught in it.

\- Scorpion dragon, an idealized from of scorpion in draconic proportions. The claw proportions of an emperor scorpion and the tail proportions of a South-African fat tail scorpion. Can spray highly toxic liquid from its stinger, or launch it to a distance.

\- solifugid dragon, an idealized form of camel spider in draconic proportions. Massive broad powerful jaws, long powerful legs, fast as all hell. Cloaked by a heat mirage in sunlight, and blending into shadows at night, and rarely staying still makes it difficult to locate. Can amplify burbling by stridulating with its jaws, in which case the magic also causes rapid desiccation and sun stroke.

\- Ammit mod, a larger and much more muscular Ammit, with the stocky body of a hippopotamus, the limbs of a lion, a crocodilian head with hippopotamus-like tusks on the jaw, and larger and forward-facing eyes, a crocodilian tail, and thick scaly hide with a mane made of thin spines. Ammit's bite and claws are imbued with a nundu's toxic breath. Ammit's special ability is brimstone; it is able to generate small rivers of burning brimstone as if by a dragons breath weapon.

\- Demon Toad, superficially similar to demon of song from dark souls, the body is patterned in black, navy blue, and olive green like a poison dart frog, its toe tips have several claw like spurs each, in place of the human-like face and arms is four massive lampreys, each with slightly pronounced and sharper teeth. At the central base of the lampreys is an antarctic scale worm -like beak. The toad can inflate several vocal sacs to amplify its burbling with engine like croaking, and when doing so the magic also causes flesh and bone to rot into a soggy sponge like material.

\- Serpentine Dragon, a mix of the oriental dragon, a Quetzalcoatl, and a basilisk, the Serpent is a massive iridescent scaled snake with a partial feathery coat, and four limbs, and a pair of wings. The Serpent's gaze can outright kill anyone that meets it, should it wish so, and it can also paralyze those it looks at, and petrify them if they meet its gaze. The Serpent's breath weapon is a dense mass of searing toxic fog, which it can manipulate to a moderate degree.

\- kirin mod, features are a mix of belgian ardennes horse breed, moose, red deer, unicorn, thestral, and a gray wolf, essentially a massive equine with golden hooves notched as if they had claws, noticeable lupine and draconic features on its head, a slightly thicker and notched golden unicorn horn which connects to wider, wickedly barbed bronze horns angled slightly to the back, with mixed areas of thick silver fur and bluesteel scale on black hide. Kirin does have wings, but they are made intangible to anything but air, and even then only from the underside that catches it for thrust. Kirin's special ability is storm; it can manipulate wind to moderate degree and ionize the air around its horns.

\- Leviathan Turtle, a mix of a leatherback sea turtle, an alligator snapping turtle, and a leopard seal. The Turtle has powerful webbed claws at the end of strong limbs, its jaws more resemble an alligator snapping turtles if with longer and with multiple "beaks" for fangs. The shell is rough like an alligator snapping turtles, covered with a tough leather and with a dense growth of tattered leathery extensions on it to obscure the true size of the body. The Turtle's special ability is vacuum; it can forcefully suck water and prey into its mouth, or expel it in a high pressure beam. The water is stored into specialized internal sacks similar to a niffler's pouch, from where it can be directed back into the mouth or to several funnels around the body for jet propulsion. Capable of reaching otherwise physically impossible speeds by sucking up the water in front of it while jet propelling.

\- Leviathan Whale, a great whale, with the long body of a Basilosaurus, a sperm whales echolocation organ, the teeth of Livyatan Melvillei, and the fins of a humpback whale, except with a second pair halfway through the body after the first. The fins are specifically flexible enough to enable a whipping motion, creating relatively small concussive cavitation bubbles. The Whale's special ability is fulmination; it can generate concussive soundwaves, and aim them with great precision, the ability can also be narrowed from a wide area blast that merely staggers, to a fist sized one that will perforate flesh. The sperm whales echolocation organ is the obvious crux of this ability, but apart from the magical boost, it is modified to have 6 nostrils, 2 for breathing, and 4 to act as phonic lips, permitting more variation to the sounds and greater sustainability than its natural base.

\- Leviathan Fish, a great fish with the elongated body of an Oarfish, the jaws of an alligator gar with its teeth replaced by shark teeth, the fins of lionfish, with large and colorful iridescent scales decorating its length. Each decorative protrusion in its fins contains a toxic quill, and each of these is prehensile. The Fish's special ability is fulguration; it can generate and manipulate massive voltages and steady currents of electricity around its body, mostly taking the appearance of several bolts of lightning snaking around it. This is facilitated by the long tissues of magically improved electric organs along it length, granting it access to all the abilities of an electric eel and then some.

\- Kraken mod, a mix of colossal squid, vampire squid, blue ringed octopus, mimic octopus, cuttlefish, etc. Essentially a hypermassive octopus with a retractable webbing between its "arms" and 8 pairs of colossal squid elongated "tentacles". It can change color, shape, and texture like best cephalopods, and unlike squids its mantle is flexible enough accommodate this. Kraken's poison is extremely potent and present in all its limbs, and passively in its mantle as well. Kraken's special ability is phase; it can make any amount of its body intangible at will, and this ability permits it to overlap with itself intangible. Indeed, the Kraken has 6 sets of excess arms fit onto its body mostly body this ability, and it can make even only the surface of these limbs tangible to the water around it to use blatantly impossible amounts of leverage.

\- Bobbit Worm Dragon, a tremendously large bobbit worm, white base with many iridescent spots, many fins along its length like those of a remipede's. Has a hagfish like radula in addition to the jaws, both of which are serrated. The special ability is cavitation breath; it can blast at the water much like a pistol shrimp might, except with the results at a much larger scale, by snapping with the base of the jaws, creating a massive if short lived bubble of superheated steam that collapses into itself with all the pressure that could be found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

\- Sea Snail Dragon, a massive cone snail with the scales of a scaly-foot snail, and ridges on its shell. In addition to the harpoons of the cone snails, the Snail also has 2 sets of radula placed opposite to eachother like more conventional teeth. The snail has hundreds of varyingly potent toxins in its repertoire and it can pick and mix any of them it likes at the time. It can exhale these from its proboscis, or excrete them into the radula, or simply use the harpoons as a cone snail would. The Snail's special ability is compression; its internal dimension are much greater than its external ones, letting it carry greater quantities of its toxins, have larger denticles than it should, and generally have greater mass than is apparent.

\- Mantis Shrimp Demon,

\- Crab Demon


	5. oneshot 1, metroid

Nothingness.  
Lightless, snug, comfortable oblivion.  
Something? -pressure, constriction, too tight.  
Tensing muscle and applied leverage, sensations of something stretching-  
*Crack* - and splitting.

I take in a calm, deep breath and open my eyes. An ocean of colors swirl before me, some of which i haven't any memory of seeing before, what on earth? My sight settles, and I take in the caverns I woke up in; red stone and yellow lakes, no distinct light-source to be seen, and no end in sight. Below me the massive shed husk of a creature I do not immediately recognize, framed by green matter of unknown composition.

I stand up, understandably unsure of myself, automatically assuming a strangely hunched posture. Pausing, I look at myself; two pairs of massive claws on single joints before the wrist greet my curiosity on dark brown arms, my body of alien shape covered by a dark green metallic carapace. "Surely not", became the sum total of my thoughts, way beyond the reach of panic, even as I numbly moved following the smell of water. Not too far, I came upon a smallish pond among the ground, and looked upon my reflection. The four purple eyes of an omega stage metroid looking back at me from behind the roughly circular mouth lined with eight large fangs.

Much later I realize I had been sitting in front of an uncommon water source on SR-388 like a complete dumbass for who knows how long. Shaking my head a little to relieve my stupor, I stand back up and walk towards where I think i molted. With luck I find my destination, and taking note of the smell of the green bubbly mass if I ever needed to track it, I settle down laying near the husk of my zeta stage. The no doubt ungodly period of time spent in a perfect zen faux-meditation by the water might have helped take the edge of my new circumstances, or that might just be because I find myself not only a metroid, but an omega metroid. Knowing yourself to be an undisputed galactic apex predator that almost cannot be harmed by conventional weapons feels great.

But good things don't last long, so on to more serious matters. I am a metroid, so it can be assumed I'm in the Metroid universe, the ridiculously high power level universe where near-precursor tech includes spiritual solid-state energy and materialization technology proofed for nuclear grade bombs, where evolution has given a some species plasma based weaponry and several apparent levitation. My panic would be implacable if I was not an omega metroid, which should be nigh-invulnerable to most what even this universe has to offer, but I still worry over the extent to which things will be targeted at me while I'm here. More distressingly I consider the timeline, the possibility that Samus "Planetbuster" Aran is already landing on this planet to hunt down each and every one of my kind, except the infant that imprints on her but that isn't too reassuring for me in particular. Worst of all, I have no idea if she'll be merely elite of elite soldier with Chozo tech or if she'll be a "frame-by-frame tool-assisted" killing machine. I choose to discount the possibility of her being a combat capable trophy wife like in "other m", as that would be both implausible and idiotically optimistic on my part. On the other hand, it's possible that the kingpin of local fate is busy with all the phazon stuff and other events of the prime series, or that timeline has significant periods in between the games and I might be safe for years yet. Who knows.

* * *

So, turns out that metroids can sleep, or at least that is what I assume I was doing before I woke up right there where this started. Still being an omega metroid, galactic apex predator, to my mixed feelings. I don't recall much of the worrying I must have done before falling asleep, but I do remember what I dreamed of. Indistinct seas of... energy densities perhaps? Followed by hazy impressions of sensory data, much of it visual, that grew clearer in segments over time, and the feeling of exhilaration as strong muscles are put to work in hunting. Memories of my past life stages, I presume, that conveniently gave me some understanding over the local geography and my condition as it turns out. The difficult to describe colors I can see nowadays feel like they're visualizations of my ability to sense energy density and type.

For example, as I navigated to check out a nearby pool of that Metroid style caustic lava that I remembered coming across in my dream, I discover it to be glowing to my senses with more than its implied heat. The mystically amplified sense heat around the pool aside, I could see a cloud of alien color around it, growing brighter nearer the molten liquid and in bursts around the steadily rising bubbles. Cautiously moving into the clouds area, I'm rewarded with the fact the cloud smells strongly acidic. Or caustic perhaps, but notably I also find the smell doesn't bother me at all, while knowing from my human experience that I should be heaving on the ground as far away from it as I could get in 2 seconds. More than that, near as I am to pool, it has taken this enticing quality to itself, beckoning to me in a strange manner. Filing the color of acidity for later, I move to inspect it closer, and in thoughtless instinct just take a big slurp from it. Ignoring the fading human hindsight screaming at me in head, I find the caustic taste pleasant to my new physiology, and that the sense of heat and acidity diminished to imperceptible as soon as it entered my mouth. Kind of made me think of the digestive system I now have though, do I still poop? Will I have defecate a solid stone at some point from now? As far as I can tell, no to either, but its possible I'll have to regurgitate everything indigestible in the caustic thick-honey-consistency substance at some point. Surely metroids don't have alchemical dematerialization digestion right? How would the Chozo have designed that in a biological system anyhow.

Pondering that quandary, I return to my aqueous mirror to take a better look at myself. Mostly I resemble a "Another Metroid 2 Remake" omega, except I'm a little slimmer far as I can tell. I have the fusion variant smooth and segmented head, and nine fangs like in "Metroid Fusion", except the spaces between the fangs are smaller. Eyes are configured about exactly like in fusion, with the exception they're purple, and my transparent lime green metroid membrane has this oblong shape and reaches almost to my throat. The massive red core within it is almost directly against the membrane, and a ribcage-like structure of bleached shell provides additional protection to it. My carapace covering everything apart from my nonexistent lips, arms below the shoulders, legs below halfway of the thighs, pockets on my neck, and tail, is a slightly blue tinted metallic olive green, with highlights of slate colored plates on my back. My skin is a dark-ish shade of brown leather, and my claws and fangs are metallic ivory with a tint of my carapace's color to them. My claws are preceded by a short phalanx bone that connects to the wrist, giving me a 2 digit hand where my palm is split and my fingers are stiff claws.

The claw joints have enough flexibility to press my claws against my forearm on the downward bend, and about 10 degrees on the upward while my phalanges have a full 90 degrees in both directions. Claws cant flex sideways at all, but the preceding joint gets about 50 degrees outwards sideways. On my feet it's a little different, as the phalanges are much longer to give me a second knee like joint; the claws bend about 40 degrees both downwards and to the sides, but the phalanges are merged together and bend about 120 degrees upwards, while being unable to bend downwards at all. The rest of my limb joints have fairly human ranges of motion, if adjusted for my natural posture. My neck is flexible enough for me to press my "lower jaw" to my "ribs", line it with my body fully forwards, and touch the side of my "cheek" to the backside of the pauldron opposite to it. The tail kind of just is there, tubular segments as is iconic, with the color of the rest of my skin, and about 10 degrees of joystick motion on each segment.

Detailing through my appearance in different perspective and testing my mobility took some time, and left me with a bored kind of exhaustion. Deciding to return to more engaging, if not decisive matters, I move a little ways from the water.  
I immediately test the most important factor, by randomly gouging a respectable trench into the ground. Earth and stone displaced, not disintegrated, and without any visible need to return to their previous location. A good indicator that the environment is not a static and indestructible stage with strategically destructible blocks like in the games. Excellent, as that means realism, which implies lower power levels, which would mean greater supremacy for metroids.  
Next up, my abilities. In the original, "Metroid 2 Return of Samus", all metroids but the queen could float about, while in later appearances that ability was cut from zetas and omegas. So, feeling a little stupid, I recall the sensations of floating and give it my best shot, and promptly crash into ceiling above me. After falling back to the ground I feel a lot more stupid, and don't even bother getting up before trying to ease up into it this time. With a wobbly control, I eventually rise into the air. It seems that our bulk makes control shoddy for post-gamma stages, nevermind if the queen is able to lift herself. Well, no matter how much it infuriates me, poor controls haven't really stopped me from playing a game before, so lets see how this turns out.

* * *

Turns out that floating with my body mass is also highly energy intensive, as find myself turning coherent again waist deep in the pool of caustic liquid from before, with its surface having lowered quite much to only be waist deep where I'm sitting. I worry halfheartedly over the first time I'll have to relieve myself, and lift myself out of the pool with a slight jump, somersaulting backwards to land on the pools former edge. The trick to flying past gamma stage I found to be limited flight time and making prior momentum work for you, see. Rotating while free-floating took some work getting the hang of, and "simply" turning while moving was difficult, due to conservation of velocity and having to accelerate and decelerate on multiple vectors thorough the process, but the results paid off. By physically jumping, I skip having to accelerate from nothing with my floating ability, and a "calculated" push to angular velocity gives me theatrical acrobatics while I abuse its vector to also push me in a direction of my choice, and bleed out the acceleration countering the gravitic one, landing as gently as I please. Damn, in hindsight I must have ludicrously stoked to be able to fly to not notice the strain on my reserves, because it's quite obvious now that I tried to. At least it isn't as bad as I thought it was, at least for a small stunt like that. Oh well, its high time to return back to the designated training area to test my dragon breath.

Arriving at the large cavern with the spring, I feel out for an easy specific "muscle" for the omega's special move: flamethrower. Electricity crackling just behind my fangs, not that... A slight clench somewhere in my hypothetical guts, not quite... I actually flinch as a wide torrent of fairly dense fire almost suddenly just rushes out of my jaws, preceded only by a brief tension along much of my length. As a result the flames arc upwards, reaching a respectable height before sputtering out. When did I disengage the flamethrower? No wait, is it a charged ability, where preparation increases duration? Only one way to find out, so I tense my, not metroid-, core like just moments before, and hold it for a moment. Several seconds of no noticeable build up later, I relax myself, perplexed, and inadvertently abundantly drench the ground in front of myself with a high pressure spray of familiarly colored vomit. Acid, judging by the color of its energy.  
Wait― did I ignore the fact I still had access to gamma stage lightning discharge while feeling out for my fire breath? Not to mention how I also can opt to not ignite the flamethrower to just spray acid it seems. Hmm, I see the plain acid lasted about 3 seconds before being absorbed into the earth. Might have had something to do with the charge period perhaps? Retrying, this time with a shorter charge and minding the ignition, I get a short sustained torrent of fire. Breathing fire really makes you feel like a bamf, I must say. A few repetitions to ensure I can do it reliably, and I move on to testing my other abilities.

Finding the "muscle" for the lightning breath wasn't difficult, but did take some acclimation. Particularly when I realized lightning was even more exhaustive than sustained floating, before I was even fully confident I could use it at will. Not wanting to black out from hunger again, I simply took off to the "lava" again, not feeling up to wandering until found something else to consume. The pool had just barely recovered, to an annoying height where I didn't have a proper spot to drink it from, so I just jumped in again. Hunger sated, I returned to the training area. After more serious testing, I could confirm my lightning breath was underwhelming in comparison to even a gamma's. Gammas at least could wrap themselves in a ribbon of the electric arcs, where I couldn't control it for jack and it only reached to my forearm when I extended my arm to the side. Not nearly enough to even reach a single bodylength, without any control to speak of, and exhausting to all hell. Sure, for all I knew from testing against stone, it was extraordinarily powerful, but it's just so restricted and circumstantial.  
Acid wasn't much better. I suppose the part where it mixes with the air and gets a massive surface area from being sprayed was detrimental to its duration, but at least it could reach as far as I could spray it.

Last up before I start roaming the environment, physical attacks. Arachnus-X was able to launch bladed projectile things by swiping its claws in fusion, and am2r featured zetas and omegas being able to do the same. Some of it might've been just creative liberties for the medium, but I'm not about to let an ugly turtle upstage me. I had already tested higher speed movements while going over my anatomy, but hadn't at all tested my limits, so here we go. I give it a free-form swipe. Repeated slightly faster, and again, faster again, etc. At the end of it, I'm massively telegraphing and overextending my movements, all the while enjoying the feeling of pleasant exercise. There's something I had found unlikely before, that any real level of physical exertion could be enjoyable. Coming to a stop from the frenzied movements, I test my breathing by taking a particularly calm and deep one. Not even winded, damn metroids are impressive, especially considering the indentations of my footprints in the stone scattered around me. So, if there is an extended range physical attack, simply working my new muscle isn't enough for it. Good that all the activity invigorated my mind a bit, and I already have something in mind. Centering myself, I prepare a claw, and give myself acceleration in the direction and rotation of its attack. WOOOSH and a distortion in the air visible even without my new sight. I had aimed downwards, and stopped before hitting the ground myself, but the air-pressure actually left a visible gouge in the stone. That's some power, and for cheap as well, because I barely moved the majority of my mass. On to experimenting!

* * *

After thoroughly testing my "moveset", I left to wander. Primarily, I had decided to find the nest and the genetics laboratory, but I felt little rush for it. It wasn't like the green bubbles that made up the nest, that I had apparently generated around my shedding spot, were widespread by any measure. I could barely make out their smell in the air, and that was mostly from my mini-nest too. I had no idea how long I had tested my abilities, but I wasn't at all tired yet, at least.

My special abilities, as far as I knew yet, were boosted physical movements, flamethrower, acid gout, lightning breath, and floating.  
I could float around maybe five minutes before having to land and find nourishment asap, but using the ability to extend and manipulate my jumps was much easier.  
Boosted movements (gotta figure out something better to call it) are essentially using my ability to float to add acceleration to anything I do with my body, whether making a claw swipe rend the very air, or make a sudden dash at unreasonable speeds.  
Lightning breath was a poorly scaled version of a gamma's ability to do the same, but it was highly damaging.  
Acid gout is a slight upgrade or at least modification to a zeta's ability to do the same, as I have the feeling that the range is greater at the cost of on-ground duration.  
Flamethrower is the semi-iconic ability unlocked at omega stage, combining a pressurized acid gout with a furtive ignition via lightning breath. Dramatic, damaging, and cheap to use compared to effectiveness.


	6. Narutoverse worldbuilding 2

My visions for the narutoverse

* * *

Chakra is the present primary medium for a large system of energy based magic. While it originates from the god tree(s), it has become a mostly natural component of living things since the Sage of Six Paths spread it to many humans in the form of ninshu. How the few non-summoning animals obtained the chakra they have is largely a mystery, but esoteric techniques to infuse chakra into living things, or being fed chakra infused foods over long periods time are the likely answers.

Chakra is composed of the physical and the mental energies, which are combined within the chakra pathways, or meridians, often referred to as chakra coils. While both pure physical and pure mental energy can be employed alone, the possible applications of such methods are restrictive, and the cultivation of meaningful reserves of either is near-impossible without chakra. For example, specific movements that leave afterimages is pure physical energy, while projecting killing intent is pure mental energy. Physical energy originates from the living tissues of the body, being harvested in minute amounts from every single cell, while mental energy is derived from the mind and mental faculties and bridged to the body through the brain and nerves.

The first chakra was generated by an unknown process by the God Tree. 'Natural' fusion by sheer mass has been ruled out by Ōtsutsuki researchers, as the god trees subsist mainly on the natural energies of their worlds, only consuming ~5% of their needs in mental and physical energies. In addition, extremely delicate probing into chakra composition in other living things, even Ōtsutsuki, shows no (or in Senju, very limited) inclusion of natural energy. As such, the natural energy infused sage chakra is a rarity, its wielders scarce, and far more potent than usual chakra. It has been suggested that the low stellar levels of energy in god trees' chakra fruits reinforce their consumers by catalyzing an unknown reaction as it disperses, rather than being infused as according to classical beliefs.

Chakra coils permeate the entire body in microscopic tubes of plant- or fungal-like tissue, which is why injuries or defects to them are incurable, save for medical miracle workers such as Tsunade. Chakra coils form an intricate spiral-like structure at the abdominal region, which is where the majority of a cultivators chakra is formed and "stored". With enough awareness, one could theoretically slowly form chakra elsewhere in their coils, but that is very rarely seen. Chakra is almost exclusively released through the 361 microscopic tenketsu, which are spread across the body. Considering that the fabled Eight Gates are internal tenketsu, and that the body has more than eight organs, it is likely that a significant portion of the tenketsu are internal, but the exact numbers are obscure. It can be assumed that any given body part has tenketsu, such as the lungs or even the tailbone. Methods to release chakra from anywhere else are extremely esoteric. To complicate matters, the body also has a number of pressure points that can accomplish various effects without directly affecting the chakra network.

Elemental natures and affinities are extensions to the basic behaviors of chakra: fire exhibits high temperatures and is thus suited to manifest flame, wind moves at high speeds and with whimsy, lightning vibrates unreasonably and thus finds paths of least resistance, earth exhibits rigidity and high inertia, and water exhibits fluidity and surface tension. More exotic uses for these elements, such as fire producing gunpowder, wind being cohesive, lightning producing nothing but light, earth making things lighter or heavier, or the "liquid-only" water release being able to produce mist, are a result of subconscious mixing of normal or yin or yang chakra and the element.  
In addition to the elements there are the yin and yang alignments, where yin affects form, and yang affects substance. Pure yin is form without substance, an illusion, and pure yang is substance without form of its own, enhancement. All of genjutsu falls under yin release, and all above-civilian level taijutsu under yang release.  
Mainstream body alteration yang jutsu like partial multi-size, are yang aligned, but make use of unaligned chakra as well to essentially stretch the capabilities of the yang chakra; extending the substance of the body to the chakra around it. Yang chakra, being entirely about substance is closely aligned with the physical energy of the body, and the easiest way to produce it is to increase the quantity of the aforementioned component in the chakra.  
Two of the academy 3 in Konoha, the clone and the henge, are well known to be illusions, but are not considered genjutsu; they are thin layers of chakra to provide structure mixed with yin aligned chakra to give form, causing the chakra to interact with the world (light) to a limited degree. Academy clones are fully illusory, gliding on the immobile surfaces of the physical world unless explicitly made to phase through, and the henge, being most often the same size as its user, can either let blood through and adjust the illusion, or can generate illusory blood as well. Yin chakra, being about creating form is closely aligned with mental energy, and increasing the quantity of that in chakra is the easiest way to produce yin chakra.  
Chakra affinities are both inherent and trained, a clan child's affinity shows the element that their predecessors have cultivated the most. Affinities are determined by a number of discrete genes of genetic memory, as the presence of chakra acts as a mutagen. The primary affinity, the intuitive one that shows up on affinity paper, can thus vary from the preceding mainstream. There is no method other than testing simple jutsu to determine secondary and tertiary affinities, and cultivating a seemingly arbitrary affinity isn't necessarily inefficient either. The inheritance of trained affinities depends on the effort installed, if you cultivated fire and lightning equally, but fire was your primary, then your child would be more likely to inherit lightning, because it took more effort to train. The primary affinity clashes with the element it precedes on the element wheel, fire to wind, wind to lightning, and thus it is often impossible to cultivate that element as a secondary one. Genetics where such elements both have affinities aren't that rare though.

* * *

Clarifications

Naruto's actual transformation technique would be a B-rank yin-yang release jutsu by virtue of Naruto's excessive yang bleeding into the unaligned chakra of the henge, causing his substance to assume the form presented to it.  
Mentioned here for posterity, the body replacement jutsu is a variation of the body flicker jutsu. The focus on an object stabilizes the high speed movement, and the early learning and mastery with it refines the jutsu further.

The shadow clone technique is a B-rank kinjutsu. It creates solid clones that cannot sustain any level of meaningful harm. I also transfers all of those clones memories and experiences back to the user, easily straining the brain, and having ended up in the forbidden scroll after several deaths by overuse.

**(AN: **Non-elemental solid 'clone' is _B-rank, elemental solid clone C-rank;_ no chance that a non-elemental solid 'transformation' is _E-rank_.**)**

It has two major limitations to what it can do. It cannot transfer any level of physical wound, and it divides the users chakra between the clones. Thus it cannot be used to train physical strength, as muscles grow from being damaged. Thus attempting to use it to train chakra control is self-defeating, as the clones have smaller chakra pools, and better control by consequence. The slightly more advanced variant, mass shadow clone, only distributes a portion of the usual chakra to each clone, leaving more for the user. Mass shadow clones is subsequently even worse for control training than the usual shadow clone.  
Elemental affinity is separate from control, so shadow clones can be used to train it, and muscle memory and body awareness are separate from muscles themselves, so they too can be trained.  
Naruto is sometimes depicted benefiting from chakra control training done by his shadow clones in fanfiction, and this is also valid, as the disruptive presence of Kurama and his rampaging bijuu chakra can be used as an asspull explanation. Such a nuance is up the specific dimension, however.

* * *

Advanced techniques to obtain or produce chakra qualities outside norm are of course also quite prevalent. The most well known types of special chakra are bijuu chakra, sage chakra, and senzoku no sai chakra, while other significant types include holy chakra held by lineages of celestial kami, star chakra stemming from the radiation of a specific kind of meteorite, dark chakra which is mixed with yōki, ryūmyaku chakra that is mixed with dense natural energy from a ley line, and gelel which is glass-like crystallized natural energy.  
• Bijuu chakra, originating from the hyper dense chakra of the Shinju, before being split into nine by the Sage of Six Paths, remains inhuman. Bijuu chakra is both hyperactive and caustic, searing and grating where human chakra is warm and smooth. This difference makes the chakra difficult to control.  
• Sage chakra is the product of mixing unrefined natural energy into chakra. Sages learn to do this safely, but those who fail are petrified for the trouble. Sage chakra is more potent than usual chakra of a similar density, and grants the sage a form of precognition from their connection with nature and all things.  
• Senzoku no Sai is a spiritual chakra that is deliberately cultivated by monks of the Fire Temple. The lands of the temple were once blessed by a powerful kami, and monks that settled there began to cultivate by harmonizing their chakra to the celestial energies of the temple. This process has prolonged the blessings of the temple, and granted the monks esoteric jutsu such as to manifest an avatar of their faith. Unfortunately, due to the harmonious nature of the chakra, it can only flourish when surrounded by its kind, and is significantly weakened outside the Fire Temple.  
• Holy chakra, an aspect of kami ancestry, is strongly aligned with moral goodness, suppresses yōki almost to the point of neutralizing it.  
• Dark chakra, a product of demonic aid, is aligned to negative and dark emotions, and able to hold its own against holy chakra. Thus most yōkai have appropriated chakra from some source.  
• Star chakra, is a denser and more malleable kind of chakra catalyzed by natural energy saturated meteoric ores. Generally the radiation that facilitates this causes significant injury over time. A sage could in theory devise a method to safely obtain this kind of chakra, but actual sages a rare.  
• Ryūmyaku chakra is kind-of a consumer grade type of sage chakra. The natural energy of a great ley line is dense and animated enough to behave almost like chakra on its own, and can thus be drawn on with disrespectful ease. Unlike standard natural energy, ryūmyaku users risk spontaneously exploding should they fail to moderate their absorption the energy.  
• Gelel are gemstones made of solidified natural energy. Temujin's clan once set up a sealing formation that prevented natural energy from passing through a barrier around a vast mine in an oasis in the Land of Wind. This caused a specific ore to begin refining natural energy, until it started catalyzing its solidification, and finally transmuted into gelel itself too. Gelel eventually grew into a kind of mindless yet sentient divine spirit of life, and its creators began to fear its growth and sealed it away. The seal however interacted with the one that spawned Gelel in the first place, repulsing natural energy from the area, turning the oasis into desert. Gelel stones act as filters that chakra is sacrificed to and ridiculously high potency energy is returned. This progress supercharges any affinity the petitioner may have, and grants access to a transformation unique to the person. Heavily inspired by Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen.  
• Six Paths Chakra. Poorly understood at large, the six paths chakra is in truth merely chakra that has been purified from the God Tree's influence. As a result, it is more pliable and more responsive, and feels more pure. This purity also permits it to carry its wielders intent without obstruction, almost like higher level sealing, enabling it to accomplish things impossible to standard chakra.

Yōki / jaki, dark or demonic energy specific to demons, yōkai, etc. There is no particular term for the Kami equivalent of this, but divinity is often considered acceptable. Much like the Kami however, yōki has the otherworldly aspect necessary affect abstract concepts, enabling the creation of talismans with it. Yōki talismans are almost exclusively malicious in intent or outright curses.

* * *

Bijū

Bijū are massive beasts created by the Sage of Six Paths from the chakra of Shinju / Jūbi. Thus, their chakra is inhumanly powerful and dense, to the point that the imprint of the Shinju present in it makes bijuū chakra scaldng and corrosive to living things. Kaguya had merged with the Shinju for the sole purpose of reclaiming the chakra her sons were spreading about like water after all.

The bijū themselves are straight divisions of the Jūbi's infinite chakra, and thus all have infinite chakra as well. The bijū are thus technically equally powerful, to the implied joy of Shukaku, the runt of that litter. Nevertheless the tail count is good for something anyway, it indicates the bijūs' ability to further divide their chakra. Shukaku is for example incapable of providing a bijū-cloak, because the very first tail is already equal to the total of his chakra. Similarly Matatabi has difficulties isolating its personal elemental touch from the bijū-cloak due to having a minimum of one half. Isobu can already form a 'regular' bijū cloak, albeit often at version 2 directly, due to the whole third of total chakra business. Son Gokū and up have no issues with bijū-cloak whatsoever, having reached sufficiently small fractions in measuring chakra control. If given equal control, the commonly accepted power ranking would be reversed, due to fewer tails having to use more power for everything. Inconsequentially, both Shukaku and Matatabi appear to have a convenient outlet to 'burn' excess chakra, having to maintain their elementally manifested bodies.

Bijū chakra is distinctive and can be felt from very far away, but doesn't linger any more than expected from chakra of its density. Significantly to some non- and canon purposes, bijū chakra does not self-replenish unless obtained as a 'quantity' from the bijū itself. Ginkaku and Kinkaku had eaten an insignificant fraction of Kurama's flesh, and could thus employ that fraction's 'amount' repeatedly, but Sora would only have had the gathered 'amount' and would have had to use it sparingly. Unless of course his coils were somehow modified to somehow add to that amount on their own, which could explain his rage.

Each bijū has at least one ability unique to themselves, that are either impossible or extremely difficult to replicate.  
1\. Shukaku  
\- Entire body is covered in natural curse sealing formations unique to him. Can both control or contain anything in contact with these seals.  
\- Related to above, Shukaku has an affinity for sand, and is able precisely direct arbitrary quantities of it grain by grain.  
2\. Matatabi  
\- Entire body made of blue fire, that is naturally hotter, saving chakra. Pecuriarly it can also burn the spirit, making wounds more difficult to heal, or performing exorcisms.  
\- Matatabi can also both perceive and communicate with ghosts and other fully spiritual entities.  
3\. Isobu  
\- Can produce and manipulate coral.  
\- Has a dōjutsu reminiscent of the rinnegan, most likely to share its field of vision with its clones. (why he keeps one eye closed?)  
4\. Son Gokū  
\- Can produce and manipulate lava.  
\- Has access to few fire release techniques as taijutsu, such hence being immune to ninjutsu nullifying methods. (throat structured to facilitate fire breathing?)  
5\. Kokuō  
\- Can produce and manipulate steam. Has access to techniques utilizing pneumatic power as a result. (strongest in physical force)  
6\. Saiken  
\- Secretes corrosive substances. Can choose which side of the pH scale to approach this from, making it difficult to defend against. (?corrosion release?)  
7\. Chomei  
\- Grows chakra insulating silk and shell. Is thus heavily resistant against pure chakra attacks like jūken, and can disrupt chakra with silk of shell based attacks.  
8\. Gyūki  
\- Produces ink. Elemental ink just about exist to conduct the will of the user, like will materialization, and could be used to spam seal based jutsu if feeling like it.  
9\. Kurama  
\- Can sense dark emotions, evil intentions, malicious thoughts, etc. Ambushes are impossible from beings with minds and puppets controlled by such, for example.

* * *

Kekkei Genkai

Bloodlines are either anomalies in the DNA that manifest unique traits, or mutations induced by generations of acclimating to specific techniques. Elemental bloodlines, for example, can be approximated through perverse amounts of hand seals, and should one have the exacting information on the functions and physiology of physical bloodlines, it would be possible to use the actual-transformation jutsu to temporally assume such anatomy.  
(Massive chakra consumption via unconventionally long hand seal sequences or cellularly accurate transformation is enough reason to leave this kind of thing alone.)  
Nara have an affinity for toying and with shadows, Akimichi for dynamic weight loss / gain, Yamanaka for mind affecting non-illusion jutsu, Inuzuka varying degrees of canine mimicry, Aburame chakra based hiveminds with their insects, Hōzuki have intuitive control over their liquid state while using the hydrification jutsu, Senju had a passively integrated portion of nature chakra that boosted or improved their abilities, Uzumaki had a divinity component to their chakra that enabled their sealing to work with abstract concepts with impunity, Sarutobi likely have some sort of fire affinity privilege for esoteric jutsu, Shimura likely have some sort of wind affinity privilege for esoteric jutsu, Kodon produce drugs depending on herbs they consume, Tsuchigumo clan had a chakra control affinity that enabled the development of their kinjutsu, etc.

• Senju clan's bloodline is known as the Old Blood of the Forest, but what exactly it entailed isn't really known to anyone. Senju have a mutation to their chakra coils that passively adds a trace amount of natural energy into their chakra's inherent composition. This gave the Senju the boost they needed to rival the Uchiha, a boost that couldn't be copied or approximated either at that. For the common Senju this boost would be marginal and difficult to place, for more experienced ones it was more likely a slight form of combat precognition. For Hashirama it became his mokuton, which was never truly seen since (Yamato doesn't comprehend the nature component and thus his mokuton is like wood release if Hashirama's was like tree release). For Tobirama it became a keen intuition for jutsu and sealing, as well as prodigious chakra control. And for Tsunade it became healing precognition and an unprecedented healing chakra affinity.  
Inspired heavily by Reload by Case13.

• The sharingan has chakra vision + chakra signature + limited x-ray, clarity of perception, -distance, -detail, -speed, memorization + reflex, and genjutsu. Sharingan genjutsu is more potent than usual as it affects the spine as well as the brain, effectively causing the victim's body to tell them the illusion is real. Eyes also think they see, ears also think they hear, nose also think it smells, skin also thinks it feels, rather than an illusion overtaking the senses to feed data to the brain. The sharingan permanently occupies brain capacity according to the most intricate phenomenon it has memorized, thus copying increasingly difficult and complex jutsu improves the sharingan's performance, while leaving the Uchiha increasingly vulnerable to the Curse of Hatred. Sharingan's copy library is purely reflexive, the body needs to be conditioned for taijutsu and affinities need to trained for elemental jutsu, and thus the sharingan is no more capable of actually copying jutsu as it is copying hand seals. The true benefit of the reflexive jutsu come in once the Uchiha learns to perform any copied jutsu without handsigns; drawing, converting, shaping the chakra for the jutsu assuming the speed of reflex and needing no concentration.  
• Mangekyō Sharingan is second stage of the sharingan, activated by traumatic loss. Apart from boosting the sharingan's regular abilities, the mangekyō grants a largely unique ability per eye, accessible only while the specific eye, or eternal mangekyō variant of the eye, is in possession. Using both mangekyō abilities at least once unlocks the susanoo which can then be trained up. Using a mangekyō for anything other standard sharingan fare strains the eyeball enough to scar it, slowly deteriorating the Uchiha's visual clarity until blindness. Abilities include but are not limited to, generating amaterasu, shaping amaterasu, tsukuyomi, kotoamatsukami, kamui.  
Susanoo is a separate ability from the mangekyō, while requiring the former, susanoo can be manifested without an active mangekyō. Susanoo essentially creates, shapes, and garbs an android chakra construct around the user, granting it several abilities. Including but not limited to amaterasu weapons, upscaled jutsu, sword of totsuka, yata mirror, yasaka magatama.

• Byakygan has chakra vision + chakra signature + full x-ray, 360º vision, perfect clarity of perception, -distance, -detail, -speed. A Hyūga with a byakugan can see anything within their range by trivially focusing on it. Able perceive small enough detail to see tenketsu, and peer through physical obstruction, seeing the chakra coils. A powerful enough byakugan can even see the memories of people. An active byakugan is all but immune to genjutsu, as the enemy cannot account for the x-Ray and clarity.  
• 'Jūken' is a supplementary bloodline of the Hyūga, affecting their chakra. Jūken chakra is ultra-stable compared to non-Hyūga, for example needles made from it will remain in the body blocking the tenketsu of its victim until being forcefully dispersed by the victim's chakra. This stability also lets the Jūken exert great force through chakra without having to make it dense enough to be plainly visible. Curiously, the Hyūga don't seem aware of this bloodline's distinction from the Byakugan.  
• 'Hakke' is a supplementary bloodline of the Hyūga, affecting their tenketsu. The Hyūga are well-known for their ability to expel chakra from all across their bodies, but even an academy student can expel chakra from their forehead. Hence the Hyūga actually have larger tenketsu letting them expel larger amounts of chakra across their bodies, as well as control it better once it's out.

• The Painted World, Kurama clan's bloodline, functions by layering their illusions into the natural energy of the world. The Kurama essentially causes the world itself to perceive the illusion, making it possible to rearrange the environment much like henge, or cause actual wounds through genjutsu. The bloodline's affinity for these kinds of illusions is so strong that it occasionally activates on its own even without training. There is however no component to the bloodline that could actually cause mental problems on its own.

Elemental bloodlines can produce a plethora of different elements, either blatantly mashing two together, combining some properties of the chakra to cause the result, or through the symbolic qualities or natural effects of the elements. Typhoon release, for example, is a blatant combination of water and wind, and the cloudy winds it produces are merely denser than otherwise.

Examples of reasonable combinations of elemental properties  
• water + fire  
\- steam (boil). blatant  
\- acid (boil). property, liquid that burns and reduces.  
\- alcohol. symbolic, liquid that causes a burning sensation, burns with abandon, and has mythological ties to fire.  
• water + wind  
\- typhoon. blatant  
\- ice. not sure how this happens, wind chakra grinding against water, wind chakra permeating water and dispersing: stealing heat, mythological interaction?  
\- pressure. property, water's cohesion + wind's freedom.  
• water + lightning  
\- storm / gale. property, liquid + lightning.  
\- vibration. property, water's cohesion + lightning's vibration.  
• water + earth  
\- mud. blatant  
\- wood. symbolic, water + earth resulting in trees isn't really sensible, despite being mythologically fine; wood release is actually water + earth + nature.  
\- oobleck. property, rigid yet fluid, oobleck hardens on impact, but flows around gentle movements.  
• fire + wind  
\- scorch. blatant  
\- heat. property, heat of fire transferred without direct medium.  
\- fume. symbolic, burned air, fumes lack oxygen and or can be poisonous, etc.  
• fire + lightning  
\- plasma. blatant  
\- cremation (or smolder, or incineration, or carbonization, etc.). property, burning around the paths of least resistance.  
• fire + earth  
\- lava. blatant, property, symbolic, all three have been observed in lava jutsu.  
\- steel (metal). symbolic  
\- rust. symbolic, rusting, as a form of oxidation, is sometimes considered a form burning.  
• wind + lightning  
\- static. blatant, electricity permeating the air.  
\- sound. property, vibrating air.  
\- swift. symbolic, ultra high-speed winds, chakra enhancement for similar movements.  
\- light. symbolic  
• wind + earth  
\- magnet. symbolic, control over solids through / despite the air  
\- sand. property, rigid yet free, heavy yet fast; sand moves freely despite being essentially small stones, and accelerates quickly despite being as dense.  
\- soft. blatant, porous structures with more air than solid.  
• lightning + earth  
\- explosion. property, rigidity suppresses vibration, building tension until explosion  
\- crystal. symbolic, crystalline structures are energy efficient? or lightning glass or something.

tripled elements are significantly more difficult, you are not combining two two-element combinations, but three elements or elemental combinations.  
• fire + wind + lightning  
\- radiation  
• fire + wind + earth  
\- dust (areal disintegration)  
• fire + wind + water  
\- dissolution?  
• fire + lightning + earth  
\- annihilation  
• fire + lightning + water  
\- ion?  
• fire + earth + water  
\- petrification  
• wind + lightning + earth  
\- shatter  
• wind + lightning + water  
\- resonance  
• wind + earth + water  
\- gravity  
• lightning + earth + water  
\- implosion?

* * *

Asspulls and strange plot points and trivia

• Curse of Hatred.  
\- Uchiha have an actual deformity in their brain that makes them susceptible to mood swings and obsession. There is no amount of pride on earth that would make an entire clan choose not to have such a condition corrected. By the time Tobirama could have gotten his hands on enough Uchiha bodies to figure all that out, the Uchiha had already deserted Madara for the village, and would have been receptive of corrective surgery. Chakra scalpels can cut beneath the surface, after all, and it is likely a seal could also have been developed to suppress the negative qualities.  
\- Considering I have already acknowledged the existence of Kami and Yōkai for the setting described here, taking inspiration from ShaperV's work (Time Braid specifically), why not make it an actual curse. Indra, being the power-hungry dick he was, made a few deals with infernal demons for power, feeling that his dōjutsu was incomplete in comparison to his father's. In his defence, he quickly realized infernal demons weren't the kind of company a ruler of the world should have, and ditched them. Having achieved six paths chakra, Indra was powerful enough to scorn his contracts, for which the rulers of Hell cursed him and his progeny to have miserable lives dominated by darkness. The deformity is merely a physical manifestation of this curse on their souls, and could theoretically be bred out of the physical bloodline.  
\- Obito was born heavily mentally retarded, and by pure coincidence in the exact opposite direction the curse tried to shape his brain, efficiently cancelling both. Apart from likely sparing him from hell, this development made it difficult for him to use his bloodline, which was by then utterly steeped in the curse. Considering the Sharingan's links to reflexes and muscle memory, this gave him a massive handicap. Madara's constant effort and cursed presence slowly influenced Obito to 'catch' the curse on a purely spiritual level, but even then only Rin's death made it stick to any degree.

• Ancestry and ancestral details  
\- Uchiha and Senju are Hagoromo's progeny.  
\- Hyūga and Uzumaki are Hamura's progeny.  
\- Kaguya clan originated somewhere down the line from marriages between descendants of the above that had lost the other bloodlines. Noticing they revived an ability of the great mother, shikotsumyaku, they turned to old habits of nobility and inbred themselves into madness.  
\- The byakugan makes peeping trivial, and thus the members of the Hyūga once tended to be perverse. Such proclivities being below their station, the elders invented the caged bird seal to occupy the minds of the majority of the horny brats with existential dread instead. If it coupled as an efficient means of obedience, so be it.  
\- Hagoromo's chakra coils were slightly skewed regarding the yin yang polarity, manifesting in him having the marks on his hands, sun on the right and moon on the left. This actually had more effects than only deciding which side he used which polarity with, as it affected his genitalia as well. Indra came from the left nut, while Asura from the right one.  
\- Before all the inbreeding, kaguya clan members tended to actually be quite oblivious, due to having naturally chakra reinforced skulls.

• "-Within the range of my divination."  
\- Hyūga have a secret jutsu for their byakugan, where they narrow its range to achieve perception without the need for perspective. Within the range of this technique, the Hyūga clan member sees objectively almost everything, being able to pull King Bradley levels of cold reading to predict their targets. Inspired by Time Braid.

• Black lightning, fire, ice  
\- Naruto is almost exclusively based in the orient. Eastern cultures have an inverted view of black and white to western cultures. In china, black is the color of the dao, and white represents death, while west thinks black represents evil and white purity, in japan black means power and anger, white purity and truth, and both are associated with death. Making a jutsu black essentially only makes it more powerful and aggressive.

• fire dragon jutsu, water dragon jutsu, etc. dragon etc.  
\- Sealing is the most widespread power in narutoverse, from hand signs to hiraishin. Adding detail to jutsu is not idle work by any means, elaboration makes chakra more stable and effective. A Great Dragon Fire jutsu is more powerful than a simple blast of fire chakra of the same size and heat, for no other reason than symbolic invocation. Also the reason we never see a Great Fireball without the hand seals, without the signs it would only be 'large' fireball rather than 'great' fireball, being as simple as it is.

• B_I_G ' F_L_A_S_H_Y  
\- The true reason weapon specialists are underrepresented is not that they're inherently weaker than jutsu specialists, not at all. A weapon wielder is by necessity a taijutsu freak, but with the added force multiplier of the weapon. They are _MORE _powerful than jutsu specialists, by measurement of effectiveness. In and out, Madara would have died from decapitation easily enough too. Hidan would have been lobotomized and chopped up by the third time he relied on the immortality shtick, too bad he was already recruited into akatsuki by then. Weapon specialist are the true breadwinners of the upper ranks, not wasting stamina drawing attention with jutsu, and being trainable by sheer hard work and thus more populous. Notice how Madara, the bbg who had by then tossed meteorites like one dollar bills at a strip club, was taken completely off-guard by a good old backstabbing? Yeah, jutsu specialists tend to be arrogant enough to honestly expect to be faced with equally big and flashy moves, not between 6 & 20 inches of sharp steel from a blind spot.

• Orochimaru's curse seals  
\- The curse marks operate by filtering the recipients chakra through an imprint of Orochimaru's spirit / soul shard. The seal adds a nature component to the chakra that passes through it. This gives the user an euphoric feeling of power, but can actually lead to death from exhaustion as they fail to keep an eye on their usage. Curse seals were developed by Orochimaru playing hobby surgeon, and are in fact based on a tissue sample from Jūgo, and thus require compatibility to his flesh. Not to mention the contamination of the curse mark, which is sadly not truly expanded upon in canon.  
\- It can be inferred that either the chakra of the little Orochimaru isn't fully compatible with the recipient and it doesn't bother to adjust, the seal is crudely anchored into the recipient's coils placing undue strain on them, even a carefully regulated supply of sage chakra is lethal to the untrained, or that the seal also adds a harmful fourth component to chakra, most likely demonic energy. The last option is somewhat supported by various characters describing the curse seal chakra as 'dark' in nature, and could be explained as the soul fragments being even less human than Orochimaru himself.

* * *

Seals

The sealing arts, or fūinjutsu, are a widespread form of magic. Seals are generally made with chakra conductive ink and paper, and can produce nearly any effect. Most seals are used with chakra, and produce effects that could replicated with jutsu. Most seals are also more efficient than jutsu at accomplishing what they do. True spatial storage seals and summoning seals are among the most sophisticated uses for sealing. The notorious summoning technique, bane of many-against-one strategies, is directly based on summoning seals, as it actually shapes a summoning formation from chakra to function. Many seals that do not mimic jutsu are activated by mental energy and draw on natural energy to function. Seals did exist before chakra, but they were much diminished compared to what they are now.

Seals are considered just as much an art as a science, as while various sealing styles have clear systems and regulations to them, anyone who intends to master sealing has to invent their own style. Each individuals mental energy, while influenced by culture, is unique to their self, and holds a specific affinity to different styles of sealing. Thus while a majority of people share enough of their worldviews and experiences to have a 90% efficiency to a local mainstream sealing style, the minority that actually get interested in sealing often have much lower efficiency and must develop their own methods. Experimentation with seals is in truth unlikely to cause explosions, as the less the practitioner understands what exactly they are attempting, the less likely the seal is to actually do anything. Most explosion are in fact due to the belief that a failed seal should explode, and the practitioners mental energy makes the failed seal do it.  
A subsection of seals, that some sealers consider terrible imitations are talismans. Unlike other seals which are essentially programmed with calligraphy, talismans are simpler prayers dedicated to a Kami or yōkai, that are then consecrated. During the consecration, the spirit in question looks over the prayer, and creates and compresses a seal within the talisman that fulfills it to some degree, based on their mood and the devotion of the practitioner. Talismans are both simpler and far more complex than common seals, as for example luck increasing talismans are among the most common. Before established systematic jutsu theory, many seals that resemble jutsu could only be performed through talismans, even with chakra available for manipulation.  
Uzumaki sealing style is distinctive sealing method dominated by spirals and spiraling formations. The Uzumaki inherited the divinity of their ancestor Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, and thus developed their sealing method around abstraction. Uzumaki seals are known to be superior, even if the reason has not been deciphered. To truly function, an uzumaki seal has to be primed by an Uzumaki, but even without that specific chakra, the abstraction accounting method reaches beyond common comprehension to deliver above its peers.

In certain conditions, sealing arts can be vastly magnified. A solar eclipse observed from a few specific locations, the night of Halloween as a whole, and other locations and events where reality can be considered altered or thin. Due to the pervasiveness of natural energy in the world, seals can perfectly well function on nothing but willpower, and in the right circumstances, transcend the limitations of complexity and power.

* * *

Summoning

Summoning jutsu calls on animals from a plane closely aligned with the prime material of the world, offering chakra for service. Mount Myōboku, Ryūchi Cave, and Shikkotsu Forest are all in this same plane, along with several other locations of similar import, that aren't famous with the humans. Without a summoning contract to specific animal clan in this plane, a summoning jutsu accomplishes nothing. Should a ninja nevertheless master the technique to the point they could perform a boss summon, attempting to do so without a contract will instead reverse summon them to territory of the animal clan most sympathetic to their spirit.  
Modified summoning jutsu can also tap into less aligned realms to summon specific objects, structures, constructs, and spirits. Summoning: Rashōmon, for example, always summon the exact same fortified gate, any damage reversed as if never having happened. Object summoning is almost higher rank than normal summoning, as everything so summoned is an artifact that slowly accumulates the chakra it is summoned with. Rashōmon for example again, is an entire gate of chakra forged steel, chakra molded stone, and chakra wood.

Summoning seals however, can reach into any realm conceivable to summon anything conceivable. It is the Uzumaki's summoning seal that first dragged the Shinigami itself into the prime material, and an Uzumaki seal that is formed along dead demon consuming seal that continues to bind it. It was the Uzumaki deciding to fish for technology from realms unseen that caused everyone else to begin doing so as well (eventually leading to the wildly inconsistent levels as science is neglected for engineering and getting the nice toys.) In a similar vein, a nonspecific summoning seal for the animal realm calls a representative from the most sympathetic clan to its activator, from where it is then possible to obtain a summoning contract proper, or secure a lone personal summon.

Summoning is a spacetime jutsu, and many who wonder about a summons willingness drop everything at any time, often neglect to consider the implication of the -time part. An animal summon receives the call with time coordinates included, and holds it until they are ready to answer it, returning to the same time as they left when they do.

* * *

Hand Seals

Informally hand signs, hand seals are a surprisingly debated topic among the more astute circles of ninja villages. Some argue that they are a mere mnemonic and learning aid, and others that they are essential tools that do more than merely help teach.  
Both parties are correct, as it happens.

Hand seals are in fact just that, hand _seals_. The seal language of hand seals, in distinction from actual sign languages, is mostly not comprehended by humans, and even when a particularly dedicated researcher makes inroads to deciphering various hand seals the overall effect is negligible, as each seal has many iterations, and even more modifications depending on the exact circumstance. As such the most commonly used sealing language in the world is the least understood. Who or what exactly sourced the hand seals is unknown, especially when considering that some nin-animals and several summons have their own hand seals that account for their varied physiologies. Performing hand seal sequences with the frame of mind to initiate more traditional seals imbues any jutsu with the quality of a seal, making its results far more rigid, and essentially railroading the jutsu upon the world.  
Much like the use of chakra enables one to skip the process of writing a seal, it is possible to internalize hand seal sequences to benefit from the rigid demand of a proper seal without taking the time to painstakingly repeat everything before every jutsu. The individual's ability to retain these seals is based on esoteric principles that no one alive has any understanding of at all, and thus this level of mastery is only ever dedicated to the signature technique(s) of the practitioner.

On the other hand, without understanding the aforementioned premise, hand seals can only railroad the user's own chakra, functioning much like the overglorified mnemonics those that subscribe to that belief think they are. In this manner, they are a mere burden on jutsu to be shed as soon as possible, and everything they accomplish is better done through pure chakra control. The ability to draw out any single breath into a great fireball jutsu whenever, for example, would make the Uchiha a nightmare to combat, but luckily they can copy neither affinities nor chakra control.  
Training to perform on pure chakra control makes for excellent conditioning for mental and mental principles of one's chakra, and paradoxically tends to make for better mastery over any given jutsu. Unlike retaining seal sequences, simple chakra control can certainly be trained indefinitely, enabling anyone to take it further with sheer hard work than someone with the talent for it attempting to internalize as many jutsu as they can.

The success of Konoha's academy clone, henge, and replacement jutsu is in fact in hammering the correct seals into each student while their minds are malleable, making them unconsciously internalize the seals for the three jutsu, and giving them that edge. Konoha genin, and up, rarely ever need to actually puppet the illusion of the bunshin (the mobile image usually has no mind of its own), find their henges more detailed in general and able to suffer small scratches, and escape unscathed with infuriating regularity through the kawarimi (internalized seals give the jutsu priority when activating at the moment of otherwise sustaining damage).

* * *

Cultivation

Cultivation does not particularly exist in this world, as such methods are not particularly considered. Should one wish to define a system however:

(stage 0: obtaining chakra, -coils, training the body and the mind)

• basis for chakra cultivation. advancement methods branch out from this basic path, follow this path until the first named stage on the other methods.  
stage 1: activating the chakra coils  
stage 2: activating the tenketsu  
stage 3: cultivating chakra reserves  
stage 4: finding and cultivating primary elemental affinity  
stage 5: deciding and cultivating secondary element  
stage 6: deciding and cultivating tertiary element  
stage 7: pioneering a bloodline by devising esoteric jutsu or combining elements

• samurai cultivation. Unlike canon, samurai tai- and kenjutsu are extremely effective. They have to be able to suppress any rebellious ninja after all.  
stage 4: cultivating yang affinity  
stage 5: conditioning the body through yang chakra saturation

• monk cultivation  
stage 4: cultivating chakra with celestial or demonic energy  
stage 5: conditioning the spirit through celestial or demonic energy  
stage 6: finding and cultivating primary element

• eight gates cultivation advancement. The gates are actually tenketsu, and thus it should be possible activate them without fully opening them, granting passive benefits.  
stage 4: activating the first gate  
stage 5: activating the second gate  
stage 6: activating the third gate  
stage 7: activating the fourth gate  
stage 8: activating the fifth gate  
stage 9: activating the sixth gate  
stage 10: activating the seventh gate  
stage 11: activating the eighth gate  
(stage 12: opening all the gates and surviving without closing them)

• seven heavens breathing. Presumably extends to seven. Includes traditional passive breath technique benefits.  
stage 4: activating the first breath  
stage 5: activating the second breath  
stage 6: activating the third breath  
stage 7: activating the fourth breath  
stage 8: activating the fifth breath  
stage 9: activating the sixth breath  
stage 10: activating the seventh breath  
(stage 11: creating the eighth breath by combining all prior ones suitably to the user)

• sage cultivation advancement  
stage 5: harmonizing the physical and mental energies  
stage 6: detecting, directing, and absorbing natural energy  
stage 7: cultivating sage chakra

• frog kata breathing (hamon)  
stage 4: learning the breath technique  
stage 5: enriching the resulting chakra  
stage 6: solely breathing through the technique

• meteoric locus  
stage 4: locating a catalyst and cultivating star chakra  
stage 5: fortifying the body with star chakra  
stage 6: circumventing the lethal radiation poisoning and restoring the body

• dark revival ascension (body revival jutsu + revival fist)  
stage 4: obtaining and cultivating dark chakra  
stage 5: familiarizing with biofeedback and regeneration  
stage 6: opening all internal tenketsu, flooding biological systems with dark chakra  
stage 7: metamorphosing into an oni

• Nara shadow cultivation advancement  
stage 4: cultivating shadow affinity  
stage 5: conditioning the mind by internally controlling yin chakra

• Akimichi calorie cultivation advancement  
stage 4: cultivating yang affinity  
stage 5: conditioning the body through repeatedly converting yang chakra into calories and back

• Uchiha cultivation advancement  
stage 5: activating the sharingan  
stage 6: cultivating the sharingan and the body  
stage 7: actually learning copied jutsu  
stage 8: activating the mangekyō  
(stage 8.5: eye-swap with a fellow mangekyō)  
stage 9: cultivating both mangekyō  
stage 10: cultivating susanoo

• Hyūga cultivation modification  
stage 3: activating the byakugan  
stage 4: cultivating chakra reserves  
stage 5: cultivating byakugan and Jūken  
stage 6: cultivating Hakke

• Six Paths Chakra cultivation advancement  
stage 4: refining chakra control enough to learn a jutsu entirely without hand seals  
stage 5: learning to convert chakra into both yin and yang as elements, rather than merely adjusting its composition  
stage 6: purifying ones chakra of the God Tree's influence  
stage 7: learning to convert chakra into any and all elements  
stage 8: imprinting ones own influence upon ones chakra

• Magus Foreign World cultivation advancement.  
stage 5: conditioning the body through primary elemental chakra infusion  
stage 6: conditioning the mind through primary elemental chakra infusion  
stage 7: cultivating secondary element  
stage 8: conditioning the body through secondary elemental chakra infusion  
stage 9: conditioning the mind through secondary elemental chakra infusion  
stage 10: cultivating tertiary element  
stage 11: conditioning the body through tertiary elemental chakra infusion  
stage 12: conditioning the mind through tertiary elemental chakra infusion

• Wizard Foreign World cultivation advancement. Should be noted, drawing a talisman onto the spirit could be used to cultivate other aspects at almost artificial speeds.  
stage 4: conditioning the mind and the spirit through meditation  
stage 5: reaching ones own internal world (sea of consciousness)  
stage 6: consolidating the sea of consciousness and creating defenses  
stage 7: drawing seals directly upon the spirit through the sea of consciousness  
stage 8: developing increasingly intricate and esoteric seals to use

• Chakra Beast Foreign World cultivation advancement  
stage 2: obtaining a cardiac chakra stone  
stage 3: activating the tenketsu  
stage 4: cultivating chakra reserves (elementalism, or esotericism, may manifest spontaneously with each stone)  
stage 5: congealing a chakra stone within the first gate  
stage 6: congealing a chakra stone within the second gate  
stage 7: congealing a chakra stone within the third gate  
stage 8: congealing a chakra stone within the fourth gate  
stage 9: congealing a chakra stone within the fifth gate  
stage 10: congealing a chakra stone within the sixth gate  
stage 11: congealing a chakra stone within the seventh gate  
stage 12: dissolving the cardiac chakra stone and congealing it within the eight gate

Apart from any repeating actions and bloodlines, none these methods are mutually exclusive. Frog Kata Breathing for example, focuses on the throat and diaphragm, where Seven Heavens Breathing focuses on the lungs and blood vessels, fitting close enough to not need excessive adjustment to tolerate each-other.

There also exist one-shot cultivation techniques and force multipliers, such as martial arts. Most under here fall under the headline of cultivating chakra reserves, or cultivating elemental affinity.

• Madness limit perfect body technique  
\- A kinjutsu of redacted origin, stored in a few forbidden scrolls of the many Kage among their hidden villages.  
\- Madness limit is a technique that alters the chakra coils to facilitate the production of chakra anywhere, and everywhere in the body. its foreboding name comes from the fact the technique essentially feels like a new limb to its users, and like any newborn appendage, it flails about. Except here, this flailing means that unstable and diverse pockets of chakra are generated within the brain at first as well, almost always causing irreparable damage to the practitioner's sanity and faculties.  
\- The benefit of the technique is preternatural control over the wielder's chakra, and great difficulty for anyone trying to restrain it. The ability to designate the location where chakra is created also grants a wielder access to an obscure quality of chakra otherwise restricted to the reserve 'pools' of chakra in its wielders.

• Inner Flow Chakra Cycling. Inspired by Blade8821's naruto: what if.  
\- Practitioner gathers chakra to location of choice to the point of pain, and then begins to cycle it through their body. Maintaining this cycling and adding more chakra to the flow conditions the chakra coils, and passively strengthens the body by exposure. Essentially a more advanced method to cultivate chakra reserves and internal control.  
\- Syncing the flow with one's heartbeat makes this exercise more comfortable, and better ties it with the physical and bodily principles, gleaning greater benefits for specifically internal chakra control and body reinforcement.

•Elemental meditation  
\- Practitioner meditates at a source of their element, and dissipates their chakra into it as far as they can follow.  
\- Water: a large river, under a waterfall, any place with large quantities of flowing water.  
\- Wind: a cliff, prairie, any place with strong winds and plenty of space  
\- Earth: anywhere with contact to natural earth and ground  
\- Lightning: electric lines, generators, if brave; high places during storms  
\- Fire: bonfires, pyres, if productive; a forge

• Harmony of the Sages meditation. Inspired by Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine.  
\- Practitioners gather together in as large numbers as possible, and perform a deliberate chakra control technique to generate a hum in their chakra. Initiates are taught to harmonize this hum to a more individual teacher first, so that their inability to simply join in as it were does not unduly prolong the more communal harmonization. There is a distinct quality to quantity, and by bringing their spiritual wavelengths closer to eachother, practitioners of this method gain preternaturally seamless teamwork, and can even share in eachother's power. Unknown to the public but somewhat famously, the _nin_-monks of the Fire Temple practice this form of meditation, making them an overwhelmingly powerful defender of the monastery grounds, but a much lesser power outside it, and especially if alone.  
\- The next step, should one wish to delve further, is to finalize the harmony of a specific group into a single 'chord', and then seek out more such 'chords' to create a personal spiritual symphony. Care should be taken to ensure any specific ones do not ultimately prove detrimental to the whole, but even two entirely incompatible ones can bring great strength if their friction is worked around and their differences made complementing.

* * *

Equipment

The majority of equipment is made of mundane, but high quality materials; the world is entirely pre-mass production and things have to last. Even then, makers of high quality wares often have chakra pools of their own with which they sometimes unwittingly boost their wares while crafting, expending chakra to render higher quality products than the materials should have allowed.  
Deliberate chakra forging isn't rare either, but the vast majority of chakra-smiths are of very minor level, and thus modern "premium ware" often isn't actually merely better materials and finer craftmanship, but honest low-level chakra forging. Mid-, high-, and higher level chakra-forged artifacts often have distinctive noticeable traits however, and aren't thus openly displayed by shinobi. The samurai, and noble classes, own the majority of the finer chakra-smiths, and the majority of chakra metal stores, simultaneously enabling and maintaining their rule over shinobi.

Chakra metal is essentially titanite from Dark Souls, being instrumental in higher level equipment. Pure chakra metal is soft like gold, but even with as much as 1 to 9 ratio of steel, or other metals, to it, it can be forged into a top rate equipment. Alone, chakra metal determines almost solely how conductive the equipment is to chakra, but with a chakra-forging process added, it can make the equipment harder, more durable, or even grant it extra abilities. A sufficiently capable and high class smith will also be able to use chakra metal to upgrade existing equipment, by covering the entire object with a layer of it, supplying chakra through an individual process, and shattering the coating through an individual process. The premise is to draw and enrich natural chakra into the object, before letting it catalyze an improvement through high pressure dispersal. The insentient spirit (kami) of the object may or may not be involved, and may or may not advance as a result of upgrading.

Material and creation method determine starting quality, X, S, A, B, C, D, in which D is entirely mundane. Each upgrade adds a +1 to the object, where +10 elevates its rank once, a +18 a second time, a +24 a third, a +28 fourth, with the success rate reducing with each +1, and each multiplier of 2 and 3 after +10. No one has ever been known to succeed in upgrading up to +29 (~0.00000000001% rate), so if a +30 elevates a fifth time is unknown. Failed upgrades irreparably break the object, rendering it into high quality materials. Any object made with materials from former failures start the upgrade cycle with the failure chance of a +5 and upwards.

* * *

Seven ninja swords of the mist

Hiramekarei.  
Almost fine as it is, solid nearly samehada-tier. To make it more special, lets look at the fish-bone technique: disrupts the chakra coils you say? Boom, the sword stockpiles 'Jūken' chakra now, increased stability means increased endurance for the built in chakra battery.

Kabutowari.  
A joke. Canon this is not even a joke, it's an insult. Hammer + broadaxe combo? With a little rope makes it better? Humorous; Very.  
\- Let's see: has to be sword-like, has to be legendary on its own, has to be overwhelming attack. I say make it a thick blocky tube with a wave-pattern shaped blade added to it on one side, the tube being hollow and filled with some chakra reactive heavy mineral sand + oil combo, that enables the wielder to exponentially multiply the leverage of any attack. Think a telescopic impulse hammer behind the blade. Perhaps add a seal that echoes the last strike when the back of the blade is struck with a nominally chakra enhanced hand.

Kiba.  
Dual-wielding lightning infused, -sorry imbued, swords? Simple but effective. Only minor details to add and modify here. Two swords for lightning means a positive negative pair, means enlightened lightning when wielding the two. Imbuing the swords means the element is inside them, means non-sensor enemies simply can't tell if you're chakra enhancing the blades. It is also likely simply holding the swords gives a slight lightning chakra body reinforcement state.

Kubikiribōchō.  
Drinks blood, don't get cut. The blade can repair itself from any damage as long as some of it remains; essentially it takes the blood first and only then checks for damage. I'll say it can't actually hold the blood in reserve, so it directs it to increase mass and density instead, slowly making the blade stronger and denser. While liable to end up looking like a cheese knife with enough blood, the sheer densities make it the heaviest sword of the seven.

Nuibari.  
Needle sword and razor wire. Simple, but not effective enough; there are better ways to sweep the battlefield of low-levelers. Expand on the wire-arts, add imbued poisons. Nuibari likely generates its own wire like kubikiri- repairs itself, the wire is highly chakra conductive in addition to being ludicrously strong. The needle has various grooves that act as chakra notches for the wire for more elaborate wire tricks cough sewing cough. Perhaps the most underwhelming, but think Walter from Hellsing as far as razor wire ability goes. Could be even, that the sword is actually just thousands of wires compacted together.

Samehada.  
Fine as it is, being known as the most terrifying one means it gets to be slightly above standard compared to the others. Chakra absorption like that, jeez...

Shibuki.  
Good concept, comedic execution. Thinner scroll, narrower blade, make double edged; explosions aren't exactly silent killing. Add a little origami ninja arts à la Konan and it's good. The tube holds a scroll with various seals, mostly explosives of various strength, and the sword takes a little chakra to duplicate paper as necessary, rather than actually unfurling the scroll.

* * *

Geographical thoughts

No chance that Hidden Leaf is actually so much better off than the other hidden villages. Why-ever the cultural and socioeconomical differences between the villages were not showcased in any way is ridiculous and a depressing mistake.  
Here are some gathered thoughts, largely from different fanfictions. I will strive to find credited users for any parts that are distinctly someone's else's work

Hidden Sand, Suna  
• Buildings are rounded and smooth to ease wind erosion.  
\- Thus sand and dust do in fact exist, and thus keeping the village from being buried by the dunes is a major internal effort.  
\- Wind-mistresses and -masters. Sweeping the streets with wind-chakra manipulation is prime training with stamina, finesse, and power. Suna Wind-mistresses are premier wind users of the elemental nations without contest. Shipping monopoly born from a history of flawless performance with generating wind to boost mercantile (and military) ships is a steady source of currency and trade to Suna, as well as the reason the ecologically impoverished Land of Wind remains a major power.  
• Water scarcity  
\- Suna is only able to grow the very minimum requirement of their own food, and water is a surprisingly perishable commodity in the desert. Bartering for more food set aside, Suna employ many of their own ninja on water-runs to nearby countries with more of the natural resource, such as the Land of Rivers and Ame. These countries are of course aware of these missions, but considering the abundance of water in their geography, are unable to use it effectively for barter and thus haven't bothered to set up any agreements with Suna over water gathering.  
\- Water stockpiles do exist, and the continuation of water-runs is essentially as much tradition as it is subterfuge at this point. It is likely Suna has tapped into cavernous aquifers in their underground structures and could be wholly self-sufficient with them. Keeping up the illusion of water scarcity is beneficial however, as no one feels the need to poison Hidden Sands massive underground wells if they have no reason to suspect any exist. The true extent of Suna's water reserves is an official secret known only to the Kazekage.  
\- Due to the lifestyle built around water scarcity, alcoholism does not exist. Alcohol and other dehydrating luxuries are essentially extinct as far as Suna is concerned, and not even local nobility drink such beverages. The community frowns upon such wasteful ways, after all.  
• Will of Sand  
\- Every civilian and ninja of Suna is a single individual in the greater community, much as the great desert surrounding them is made of individual grains of sand. In Hidden Sand, the community is everything, and individuals find little wrong with personal sacrifice for the greater good. Much as Naruto's miraculous saving of the lives of the Hidden Leaf managed to jolt everyone to connect his immensely obvious heritage and scary power with the logical conclusions, Gaara's defending his village to the point of death made everyone see that he too was a true member of their community, and he too did everything he could to contribute.  
\- This makes Suna very appreciative of puppets and puppetry as force-multipliers. A single puppet-master can fight with the efficiency of an entire team all alone, and serve as an immortal and inexhaustible army as long as the puppeteers live.  
• Desert awareness, proficiency  
\- Ninja training means Suna ninja might be hyper-specialized for their home-environment, and thus lacking outside it. On the other hand, being decent in a biome as challenging as a desert is great when any invaders are almost assuredly not.

Hidden Cloud, Kumo  
• Vertical infrastructure  
\- What implications does Kumo's very vertical architecture and geography have on their culture and economy?  
\- Kumo ninja and civilians are entirely immune to all levels of acrophobia.  
• Philosophy of Strength?  
\- It can be noted, that 'Killer Bee' was exceedingly well-tolerated by his village as a jinchuuriki, and only a lack of allies in a deliberately obscure location implies that Yugito was treated any less well. It is likely that Kumo has a cultural reason standing behind this acceptance, and considering the rowdiness of the Raikage we see, it is likely some sort of philosophy built around the honor of the strong.

Hidden Stone, Iwa  
• Stonework and architecture  
\- Iwa is almost literally carved from and into the mountains around it. Extensive underground passages are a given, and it is likely the village is on some level difficult to recognize from its surroundings.  
\- Iwa ninja are likely highly proficient at guerrilla warfare, constructing very livable bunkers on the fly and setting nasty traps in the landscape.

Hidden Mist, Kiri  
• big mystery  
\- What permitted one village above others to construct weapons on the grade of those of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist?  
• Kekkei Genkai  
\- Kiri had an abundance of bloodlines before the purge, enough to produce someone like Mei Terumi, who had two elemental bloodlines. Bloodlines that enable intuitive combination two chakra natures bring exclusivity to clan secrets, and letting two bloodlines as powerful as lava and boil mix would be inconceivable without some deep seated cultural basis.

Hidden Leaf, Konoha  
• Will of Fire  
\- Mushy mushy philosophy aside, Konoha ninja make for premier teams. Specialization in teamwork and reliably trained universal basics mean that retirement age (or life-expectancy) for Konoha ninja is significantly higher than average in Elemental Nations. Thus, contrary to the belief that there is something in the water in Konoha that breeds strong ninja, it is simply a case of more ninja living long enough to come to their power and find their strength.  
• Politics  
\- Konoha has been noted to love their bloodlines, and it is implied that the various clan heads have some serious clout and privileges.  
\- Significance of the Uzumaki, Konoha flak-jackets still bear the Uzumaki (or whirlpool) spiral on their backs, Uzumaki must have had some absurd clout in their time.  
\- Konoha has been implied to have civilian council with some political weight, as Sarutobi's undoubtedly many attempts to improve Naruto's life and education (while preserving some semblance of a childhood) were ineffective, and it is unlikely that a ninja clan would fail to be logical about a tactical resource like a jinchuuriki. Que an inordinately poorly informed and objectively stupid civilian council.  
• Way of the Shinobi  
\- Danzō claims to do Konoha's dirty work, but his _drones_ are absolutely worthless for deep (or any at all, actually) cover. What exactly do Root's broken shells of mankind actually do? If Danzō actually found enough rejected or entirely unofficial assassination missions to fulfill his edgy jollies he would surely have noticed the big steaming pile of treason he was sitting on, and settled for a less self-destructive wing of ANBU. Sarutobi did, in the end, command Itachi to perform the Uchiha massacre, so he is not above basic shinobi philosophy and could most likely have agreed to a less inhumane (read as, 'inviting one's own death') Foundation.  
• The Holy Log  
\- The cult of the Holy Log was started as enemy propaganda and defamation campaigns by Iwa and Kumo, after one too many of their generals had their mark escape assassination by the Log. Needless to say, the Leaf ninja were ecstatic about it, and quickly began to design precepts and doctrines for the Holy Log, turning the propaganda around and giving their side a massive boost in morale. The cult has since harmlessly moved into obscurity, it's jovial religious fervor fading with peacetime.  
\- The Holy Log is above all a benevolent faith, and its god, the LOG, above all a merciful deity. Punishments for heretics are almost always nonlethal, and very often even physically harmless, if demeaning. The Log is also understanding of the struggles of mortals, and does not except messiah-like suicidal forgiveness from those not in positions of absolute power.


	7. oneshot 2, 'kon twins

Naruto

* * *

A feeling of darkness and smog.  
Something soft.  
A curious chasm.

* * *

"OW My fucking head." I groan as I open my eyes. "Where the fuck am I?" I utter, looking at a thoroughly unfamiliar ceiling, in a thoroughly unfamiliar room.  
_Where the fuck is this, what the fuck. _I thought while sitting up, noting the unfamiliar style of my bed linens, worn down in their simplicity. Almost immediately however, something far more important came up.

"What the- WAIT!-" I scream, terribly startled as I turned face-to-face with Sakon or Ukon's face, noting however that they screamed too.

A short pause.

"Right." we say together. "So-" one of us raises our shared left hand, pointing at themself.

"I'll go first" one of us says, "I guess you were somehow dragged into this as well?"

"Yeah" the other answers. "But can you imagine how much it'd have sucked to have to share with either Sakon or Ukon?"

*Snort*. "Yeah I can, was about to ask the same, even."

"So I have this feeling we're somehow technically the same person, wanna take this one step further than old 'kon twins ever did?"

"Same. Feels weird talking to myself, lets." Turning and moving to face the same direction.

We both close our eyes, our heads right next to each-others, moving ever closer.  
Sharing a neck.  
Cranial conjoinment.  
A barely uneven skull.

We open our eyes, once more an I, and close them again. I look through my immediate memory, seeing two perspectives waking up, sitting up, and then talking.

Looking deeper, I attempt to see through Sakon and Ukon's memories.

_"Holy shit, the series didn't overstate the arrogance."_ Looking through the memories available to me, I can see it all. The twins had the standard shunned orphan package, having been thrown out of their cannon-fodder clan due to disgust and prejudice over their budding bloodline. They were taken in by Orochimaru, made to fight a few reasonably rigged matches in his gladiator pits, and later rising above the rest even fairly (by shinobi standards). At this point they spent most of their time merged as seen in the series, and a year of absolutely dominating their rings later they received a shared curse mark. Apparently the curse seal really wasn't meant for co-ownership though, as as far I can see, it's side effects were fairly mild compared to Sasuke's in the series. By the time the Sound four was a thing, these two honestly thought they could rival the 'Copy-ninja 'Kakashi' of the Sharingan', without consciously factoring the rest of their team, or even the curse second state. They also had nothing scheduled for today or the next few weeks.

_"That answers that then, how about their skills."_  
A capable nameless martial art. Even without the force multiplier of **Parasite Demon Symbiosis**, which is the name of their beneficial merging.  
No weapon based martial art though.  
Good accuracy with thrown weapons.  
Basic ninjutsu. Sakon had a few fire tricks, and Ukon had a few wind tricks. Nothing major enough to be flashy even if combined.  
Basic genjutsu. And a dislike for it due to it being essentially invisible.  
Advanced sealing, apparently the patient brother appreciated the art, and the impatient one didn't feel like actually training for proper jutsu.

Most of the "flashy moves" were apparently elemental and explosive seals. Painstakingly prepared in advance, but Sasuke's retrieval must have been sprung on the two because they somehow found a way to empty their impressive stores before having time to replenish them. Such a shame, but how fortunate.

_"What to do now_ _though. I'll have to plan and prioritize and shit. I'm technically on Orochimaru's side, aren't I. Guess I'll start with endurance training with the cursed seal."_

A barely registerable pulse of chakra into the seal. The blotches of my cursed seal spreads across me, before being drawn into my skin, turning it brick red. My chin extends into a point and I grow wicked fangs, two horns growing into the corners of my forehead.

All the while I'm testing my ability to feel my cellular structure. "_How fucking stupid were these two?"_ I can clearly visualize my entire body at cellular precision, observing each of the small changes done to it by the cursed seal, observing the liquid chakra and enzymes of the seal permeate my body, knowing I could even prevent them from doing anything. "_My internal chakra control is absurd, it's way beyond Sakura's supposed perfect. The things these two could have done with this kind of precision. Why didn't they realize?"_ Observing the quickly increasing strain on my chakra pathways, I place a contemplative focus on my internal tenketsu, loosening them sligthly. More chakra leaks into my insides, the strain reduces, the cells of my organs show no reactions. "_I feel perfectly fine so far. Was the inability to regulate our internal chakra the sole restriction on stage 2 duration?"_

_"Extremely importantly, I must test my external control."_ Opening my eyes, I raise my hands. Focusing seriously, a chakra string erupts from each of the fingertips and the joints on both my hands. Extending the strings further, I begin weaving 19 strand braided ropes. Sighing in heartfelt relief, I draw the ropes back into my body and release focus.

_"Thinking so highly of themselves must have been a subconscious nod to their level of control. If this ability had been cultivated, they would have been unstoppable_."  
Thinking quickly I employ my basic genjutsu skill to create false data for my eyes to receive, before externally directing the illusion to them. I can very clearly feel the genjutsu chakra in my eyes, but can also see a perfectly detailed illusion of my apartment. For the hell of it, I try to only purge half of my visual nerves of the illusion. I succeed, and a headache inducing superimposed perspective is my reward. I dispel the rest of it before I get a migraine. "_Genjutsu is a check, my control is perfect enough to draw subconscious details into my illusions. Tayuya would be jealous."  
_I conjure small fireballs into my palms, letting a lower cohesion layer of chakra envelop them making roughly spherical flames. "_Purple, huh. Guess the faux sage transformation must be good for something."_ I picture sooty smoke and make to choke the flames, leaving much larger globes of incense like fumes around my hands. "_I can feel the potential remaining in there. It isn't as much as I started with, but the dispersion has increased the surface area. Letting this ignite again would cause an explosion." _I draw the depleted fire chakra back in, letting my hands lower. Again, I conjure fire, but this time I expel chakra from everywhere on my body, and create a disordered bunch of smaller flames all around me. A little more focus, I guide them on complex orbits around me. Extinguishing the flames, I draw the remaining chakra back.  
Raising a hand, I blow a slight gust at my pillow. It flies off and hits the wall fairly hard, the light thing it was. I bring my hand in front of me, shaping chakra into claws around my fingers. Converting that chakra into wind forced a minimal addition of focus. A quick swipe, the sound of cutting air. I draw in the blades, and expel unshaped wind to rotate around my wrist and forearm. Draw that in, stand up to pick up the pillow, throwing it back onto the bed, I leave the room.

* * *

Shortly after fetching my rations from the mess hall and pulling a pillar men impression on them (not the humans mind you), I arrive at my personal training room.

_"The luxuries of the_ _elite. At least here I can nonlethally test my new jutsu, and keep a modicum of secrecy." _I go to the target dummy closet to pick up new and fresh ones, absently blasting the uncleaned mangled carcass of the previous one to a corner with my wind. "_Only 7? I'll have to order a refill."_ I take them all and place them a little ways from each other around the room.

Taking one of the twins' stances in front of the first one, I coat my extremities with small scale tornadoes. As if performing a halfhearted kata, I strike without much strength. Just before the moment of impact, I direct the wind around the respective arm forwards, and have the rest twist around to revolve in directions that complement the strike. The dummy deforms grotesquely, while getting hurled at the wall behind it, hitting it with a loud meaty slam. I'm already next to it by the time it lands on the floor, swiping as if to claw at it with my other hand, the twisters around my legs having changed directions again. This time, the wind splinters into ribbons and spreads across the dummy, cutting it into... well, ribbons. I draw in the wind around my legs, not wasting the chakra.

Squatting to examine the anatomical replica, I look over it's 'wounds'. Perusing the deformities both externally and through the improvised cross-sections provided by my second attack. It's clear that the first strike already was fatal. "_That's some power, I'm going to have to be careful if I don't want to waste any lives."_ Standing up, I extend threads of chakra and bind the dummy pieces like Xmas ham with barbed wire, before converting them all into the suppressed fire fumes. A step back and I ignite all the tips. *FWOOOOOSH* the dummy is cremated in a surprisingly large conflagration, which fortunately burns out without igniting anything else.

Turning around, I expel chakra and conjure small flames in various orbits. Facing the center of the room, I divert several to spare myself some dummies, and adjust two to strike precisely where i want. The first I let be as it hits its dummy's head, but the second I have crumble like dry infirm soil against the surface of its dummy's abs. Soon after several more flames impact the two dummies while I alternate the receiver of the variants. "_Gotta love understanding fire and burning as phenomena."_ The standard flames imploded on impact, causing the dummies to wobble on their posts and take burns, but the crumbling flames incinerated and charred deep gouges instead. "_Realizing potential feels great, I kind worry for how things could have turned out though. Widespread, microscopic chakra control for a signature technique, the twins must have been extremely unfortunate 'savants' to not realize their potential."_

I start moving among my flames, charging and feinting at the remaining dummies, making exaggerated evasive motions, retreating and switching targets, all the while passing the flames close by myself to guard against imagined attacks, and close by the dummies to distract and obstruct. Growing increasingly creative to compensate for the still opponents.

After a while I stop to experiment. I attempt to create a gentle gust toward one of the flames, specifically thinking about nonflammable gasses. The flame crumbles while swaying, and promptly explodes in a blinding flash. "_Alright then."_ I try again, but specify for the flame not to crumble. It expands explosively and grows much brighter. I try to withdraw chakra from it, and succeed to return it into the smaller size. "_What went wrong? I could swear I actually got further on the _less_ stable flame."_ Inhale, pause, exhale. I dispel most of the flames to conserve chakra. "_Right lets think. It's possible that the crumbling property caused small divisions that pushed the flame even before it lost cohesion. So how do I make my wind chakra inert against fire chakra? At least my own? It doesn't seem to be about knowing that air needs-not burn, the chakra component might interfere with that... Fumes? That could work."_ I generate wisps of the suppressed fire and blow them at one the flames with a gust, minding that it not crumble against my own intent. The flame sways harmlessly, and I withdraw my fumes. "_Success. I am overjoyed." _Sarcasm because the method was inefficient in both chakra and execution. Fumic wind takes too much to be worth it just to slipstream my flames. "W_hat if I added the fume component into the fireballs themselves?"_ The remaining flames slowly gain an aura-like glow and a short trail of smoke as I focus. I put one into a dummy, and the fumes ignite with the last crumbling particle, knocking the dummy off balance with an explosion for a moment. I put another into the dummy but focus to have the fumes seep into it instead. A third one, its fumes seeping as well, but igniting at last moment, and the dummy crumbles into cinders. "_What is a signature jutsu without esoterism? Stable fumes for the unstable flames it is." _Returning to the primary task, I have a flame get into the clear before pushing it with a gust. The flame takes a very deliberate, quick, and sudden movement in the direction of the wind. "_Excellent..."_

I surround myself with a whirlwind, pulling a few flames closer. They get caught in it and are pulled along the wind much faster than they could otherwise move. A quick outward wind pulse and all the flames are knocked off. I then pull the whirlwind closer, coating my body with a layer of revolving winds. I draw a single flame toward myself, at my extended left arm. It is caught on the wind, and makes a fast trip around my body and knee before appearing on my right palm, where I then anchor it. A quick charge and palm thrust at the nearest remaining dummy, the flame crumbles even before contact, badly charring a wide area.

Conjuring more flames, I resume my earlier agility and positioning training. This time maintaining the wind shroud around myself, and occasionally catching the flames concealed by my movements, which I then launch, barely missing the missing the dummies. A while after, I begin to juke my imaginary opponents by quickly whirling a flame or two defensively across my body.

Having complicated and accelerated until I built up the slightest sweat, I stop, dispelling the now numerous flames. The brief surge of chakra reminds me to better look at my reserves. "_Around halfway there, huh? Strongest of the Sound Four and its summoning expert for sure. I've been going at this for hours now, maintaining the kind of jutsu I did... I think I'll call the wind jutsu **FūjinGaitō**, **Wind God Mantle**, and the fire one **Yōkodōrō**, **Demon Fox Lantern**"_ I perform a quick leap and a couple blasts of wind to put the destroyed dummies in the same corner. After which I rearrange the remaining three into a shallow triangle pincer formation and put them in defensive if versatile stances. Then it's time for lunch rations.

* * *

After lunch I polished my hand to hand skill on the dummies, employing greater force than before due to necessity, and testing attacks and forms from various series I could remember. By time for dinner I had demolished the remaining dummies, and lodged an order for cleaning and 20 (the room's closet's capacity) more spares before going to the mess hall.

After dinner I reviewed my sealing, and made preliminary experiments with western and scandinavian symbology, languages, and script. Despite my prior knowledge, and new ideas, I made little progress towards inventing my personal branch of sealing. Refinement of my prior skill and seals went fine however.

I end the day by going to sleep still in my second stage.  
And wake in the morning not having reverted.

* * *

*Some days later*

"Lord Orochimaru, I would like to request more authority over the cannon-fod- trainees."

***kukuku*** "You may have it." Orochimaru answers absently, more focused on his current research _and_ entertainment. ***gurgle*** gurgles the poor thing.

"Thank you my Lord." I leave, still in my second stage.

*scene break*

**"LISTEN UP Y'ALL SORRY SONS OF BITCHES!"** I howl into the main training hall. **"TODAY WE'LL BE DOING SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT! EVERYONE GET OUTSIDE!"** Scared shitless by my demonic second stage voice filter, the cannon-fodder vamooses outside.

**"NOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO IS RUN LAPS AROUND THE COMPOUND AS FUCKING LONG AS YOU CAN! AND IF ANYONE STOPS FROM ANYTHING OTHER THAN EXHAUSTION I'M GONNA GUT THEM WITH MY BARE HANDS AND MAKE THEM EAT THEIR OWN ENTRAILS! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"**

The cannon-fodder starts running. Not too soon after I start patrolling the tracks, directing all of the poor collapsed bastards to return inside when they recover enough to do so.

Hours later, I direct two of the last three inside, stop the last, congratulate him, absorb his body and overwhelm his control over it.

*scene break*

"Hey there Kimimaro, I came up with this experimental treatment for you and have our Lord Orochimaru's agreement to implement it." With fingers crossed behind my back in my mind's eye.

"Then you should do as our Lord wills." he replied in that terribly dead-inside monotone.

"Don't resist."

I hug Kimimaro, engulf and absorb him. Turning my focus inwards, I excise the damaged and diseased portions his organs, mainly his lungs in confirmation of not!tuberculosis, but a little of his heart as well. I then mirror the procedure with the best pair of lungs of the cannon-fodder, and relocate the relevant tissues into Kimimaro, superficially changing his DNA and surface proteins to prevent rejection.

I expel Kimimaro, only for him to gracelessly collapse clutching his chest in a coughing fit. There's no blood to be seen though, at least. After fifteen-fucking-minutes he finally stops coughing, and I tell him to go and get checked by the medics. He thanks me with much more vigor and leaves.

I give a sinister smile, having also replaced a sliver's worth from each of his bones, and being in the middle of assimilating those shards.

* * *

*some time*

Knocking, I promptly open the door without waiting for a reply.

"Hey kidōmaru, is Kyodaigumo your personal summon or do you have a full spider summoning contract?"

"Hey Sakon U- where's your other head and which are you?"

"We are now Yakon, when merged far enough to only have a single head."

"And the second stage?"

"Endurance training."

"Huh, why haven't I thought of that." He mutters "...Right! Cool- so Kyodaigumo is my personal summon but I do have the full contract as well. Lord Orochimaru wouldn't settle for less after all. Why?"

"I would like to petition with the spiders to sign the contract."

Instant silence. "...And why should I let you do that much?"

"I have the newfound authority to entitle you for doubled rations, effective immediately."

"Right so-" kidōmaru stands up to rummage through the stuff in his bookcase, "-you'll need to learn how to use the sign language, which is here on this scroll. I'll summon the representative after you're done, any questions?"

"Is there a spiders clan branch for tarantulas?"

"Yes, but 'warrior' branch isn't quite as established as the 'weaver' (web making spiders) or 'assassin' (jumping and roaming spiders) branches. I can summon that specific representative though no problem."

"Appreciated." One last look of perusing the scroll on spider sing language, "I'm ready."

"Right so here we go." Hand seals for the **summoning** technique, *POOF* and a large plume of white smoke.

The smoke clears, revealing a man sized, grayish tarantula.

Who are you. What you want?

My name Yakon. I desire call contract.

Call contract, you stranger?

kidōmaru clears his throat. Apology, I trust him.

Bargain then, associate-of-friend.

Blasphemous, I able provide surgery. Venom organ for warrior, eyes for weaver, spinnerets for assassin.

Blasphemous, agree. Vexing how tempting that bargain. You desire power or ally?

No power without ally, My mind not foolish. I desire beauty and strength of shape of eldest hunter. Kidōmaru sweats visibly at this comment.

Careful there flatterer, lest you be misunderstood. I leave converse with council, and would return in agreement. *POOF* and the spider disappears in a smoke bomb.

"You didn't just say that right? You didn't say anything even vaguely sexual right?"

"I didn't say anything I didn't mean." I answer, turning to the door "Find me if the answer is positive." I say before leaving and closing the door, still in second stage.

It takes a couple weeks but the answer is positive.  
The Spiders' strength among the summons skyrockets after they gain access to hybridized broodmothers.

* * *

*some time*

"Sakon! Ukon! What the fuck have you goddamn pissheads been fucking spending your accursed time on!? And where the fuck's your airhead spare knob gone!?"

**"Always the charmer, Tayuya. We are now Yakon, as we have merged beyond our former limit."** I answer, letting my still ongoing second stage distort my voice.

"What fuck does that freaking mean dipshit?!"

**"It means what it does. I have been thinking actually, tell me, are you of Uzumaki descent?"** Asked with a sprinkling of my killing intent, and my aura 'gently' wrapping around her.

"O-o-only through a branch line, and without i-i-inheriting the vitality o-or broad sealing affinity, only my-my specialized summons..!" She chokes out, gasping for breath, while her curse seal discreetly extends.

**"Thank you, that is good to know."** I reply, dismissing my killing intent, and turning to leave, leaving her there gulping lungfuls of air.

_"Shit, Uzumaki ancestry means its not worth it to sacrifice Karin to marginalize Tayuya's curse seal contamination. I'll have to find someone else while keeping the abilities she would gain worth it."_

* * *

*some time*

_"I wonder if I can pull a kodoku in this world. Good ol' Oro' does have some nice pill furnaces according to the twins memories doesn't he?"_

Later, once I have successfully appropriated a high quality pill furnace. "... So chakra goes into these grooves to form a containment barrier for vapors, but has to enter from here to guide the evaporation process..."

I set up one way barriers in the forest, that alert me when life forms smaller than my head are inside them, permit summoning said lifeforms into a similar barrier I have set up in my room, and puts them to enchanted sleep when I do.

*After I also have very many of such critters.*

"In you go!" I dump a good bunch of them into the bowl of the furnace, waking them up with the weakest hint of killing intent after closing the lid. Before they have time to start reacting, however, I form a inverse modified ox, and a modified tiger hand seal, and begin channeling my fumeous fire chakra into the burner, generating multicolored incense from it. As I sense more and more of them begin dying to each other, I begin pouring slowly increasing amounts of malicious intent into the pot. Stopping both the intent and incense after only one remains anymore.

I slap a pair of seals on my biceps, before opening the lid. Immediately, a large, mutated worm bites half way into my forearm. Knowing the potency of the malice I had added into the kodoku, I do not even try to assimilate the worm, but rather grasp it firmly, and relocate it into a barrier reinforced enclosure I had prepared. The poison from its bite I expel from the wound into a preservation-stasis seal-etched pitcher glass jar. I then perform a more traditional pill refining process on the waste from the kodoku, to see what I get. It made six standard serving sized pills, which turned out to be a more nutritious soldier pill that makes your chakra poisonous to others for days, after I gave one to a cannon-fodder grunt to experiment. Finding that property to his chakra was an unpleasant surprise.

The worm looked much like an about 50 cm long sanguine leech with five huge five cm centipede fangs on muscular jaws, many short, thick, and velvety legs twice their width apart from each other with slugskin pads, and now after its gotten a while to stabilize, three retractable compound eyes and four slug antennas along with a real bunch of bristles all across the sides of its body.  
Its antennas tend to face me whenever I'm in the room and it's awake, so I've been feeding it plenty. That of course made it triple in size in a week and grow 8 cm fangs, but at least it donors its poison freely. Later on, I arranged for it to have its own attendants via secrecy, obedience, and loyalty seals. Wouldn't do to let a demonic beast like it starve or feel the need to escape.

I gave some of its poison to Kabuto one time so that he could get me an antidote to it, but he said it's impossible to immunize against, so he can't develop any antidote within his skill level for it. I don't intend to let Orochimaru have any meaningful quantity of it, so I exclusively keep all the extracted poison in my first successful circular-sealing style storage (hammer)space ring. Also, I now have Summoning contract with the thing as well, if I defect or ever feel the need to truly fuck someone up in a battle.

* * *

I have succeeded in expanding my 'floating flesh' capacity, and now have a large permanent spider summon body I prepared myself just floating within me. **Hidden Shadow Spider Arms** is such a treat to pull on my increasingly rare sparring partners.

Incidentally, I've also finally managed to prepare **Poison Hand **sand from the worm's toxin. I had to prepare another kodoku, but add medicinal herbs to the waste before processing, and mulch up and carbonize the demonic beast it produced to get a working counter-poison paste. Which was then added to thoroughly sterilized fine sand along a few dozen herbal salves and the poison.  
Due to my multilinear physiology thanks to my bloodline, I can get the full benefit of **Poison Hand** without worrying about losing my hands to gentler pursuits. I in fact expanded upon the technique, by adding the remainder of the pills made from the first kodoku into the sand, it became possible cycle chakra through the poison saturated area to build poisonous chakra. Needless to say I made sure the poison seeped all the way to the bone on the applied hands, in preparation of the hopeful day **Shikotsumyaku** has fully spread through my skeletal systems and I gain access to it.

The worm, which I've now imaginatively named the Amaranth Wyrm, MUCH prefers my **Arachnid Power Form** to my human body, it's kinda weird honestly.  
I did stud with it for two new broodmothers from the Spiders' warrior branch, but natural spider reproduction is just kinda dull, so I made the Spiders clan agree to stop asking.

Hunting in woodlands around the compound in my spider form is exhilarating though, and its senses for prey and ability to stalk undetected are somehow way better than my smaller human form's. I made sure I could taste anything I ate despite the arachnid physiology of the form, and needless to say I did a great job at it, everything tastes awesome. As a bonus, the food boluses left over from arachnid feeding are apparently prime special material for pills, as I found out.

* * *

*some time*

Danzo's been getting nosy again, gathering intel for the sake of the Hidden Leaf when he either makes Kage or feels like Hiruzen has stopped being a pussy.  
Anyway, I recently caught two Root scouts from the late entry kind, A Hyūga branch-clansman, and a Yamanaka clanswoman. Don't really give shit about their tragic backstories that drove them into root, but a confirmed bloodliner and an extreme clan secret user were too good to pass up._ "After I get these two loaded on loyalty and gratitude etc. seals, I'll shove 'em in my burgeoning lieutenants and get my social circle properly started. kidōmaru's gonna love a long-range byakugan for his archery, and Tayuya's gonna love the Yamanaka secret mental bypasses for her genjutsu and summons. _Shame about having to resort to sealing, but I wouldn't get loyalty from ol' Oro's ragtag crew without some measure of manipulation, and I haven't the time for the good old brainwashing.

I checked over the caged bird seal as closely as I could without triggering it. Far as I can tell it's going to harmlessly implode when multilinear physiology kicks in. Here's to hoping it won't severely retard Kidōmaru when he can't die during the merging process.

It is done, Kidōmaru and Tayuya both have gone and come through the magic barrel again. The added bodies had to have a seal anchor to connect to the cursed seal, and be given a triple dose of the Mind Awakening Pill in order to acclimate them to cursed seals and counteract their to be hosts tolerance for the drug. After the preparations, I merged the participants, adjusted and repaired their internals, and threw them into my prepared **Four Black Fogs** smog filled **Dark Sealing Method** cauldrons. _"Wonders of sealing arts, those things, modified from human sized pill furnaces."_ Kidōmaru emerged with a fully byakugan-white third eye and Tayuya with glowing amber eyes, both in the second stage. Their demeanor is understandably slightly changed by consuming an entire different life's memories and experience, but otherwise everything is as expected.

Kidōmaru is now able to shoot an arrow, or dart whatever, through a fly's foot at fifty paces, and Tayuya can both layer autosuggestion genjutsu to accept the illusions she casts, as well as actually direct her doki through sound alone. Oh, and Kidōmaru's **One Hundred Ninety Two strikes** is honestly terrifying to look at, especially when when shows promise of bringing it up to **One Hundred Twenty Eight Palms** _per _pair of arms.

* * *

*some time*

Orochimaru took over / received Kimimaro's body just recently. He decided to keep his hair white in honor the strongest underling he's ever had and the closest thing to familiar love he's felt since he was orphaned. I've been secretly tapping into Kabuto's reports from the chunin exam infiltrations, and the main characters haven't even graduated yet. Needless to say Oro' with **Shikotsumyaku **is an entirely different beast than one without.

I had managed to locate and bug his 'switching room', and he essentially perfected the **Power of the White Snake** there and then after switching. It was bemusing watching the series' first true antagonist correct what I felt was the only design flaw in his aesthetic. Grotesque half serpentine face with shaggy hair molding into a demonically alluring chimeric serpent face with a flowing mane like an oriental dragon's, ragtag glued-together snakes melting into a large cohesive serpentine body with small white snake heads for scales. What I truly appreciated though, was that I just confirmed I'm essentially immune to his form of immortality, having the assimilator bloodline myself. He should only be able to take over those he swallows right? So if he can't swallow me, but I can absorb him, what then?

It's likely though that ol' Oro' won't need to switch bodies again though, thanks to gift I sneaked into Kimimaro's DNA while healing him back then. A gift I gave myself even before that; biological immortality. It's strange that the 'great eugenicist' Orochimaru didn't discover telomeres during his experimentation, because it was frankly trivial for me to rig myself unbreaking ones that self-replenish even if somehow reduced.


	8. oneshot 3, WOTMW

Warlock of the Magus world

* * *

A jet-black mannequin-like humanoid in impossibly contrasted and idyllic robes of metallic pure white shades, an elaborately carved metallic pale mask ajar on their forehead, simple white gold shoes on their feet, appears out of nowhere. Behind them a jagged two dimensional square of lightless yet gleaming golden radiance. "So this is the dumb that Le*lin The Black Scourge crawled his way out of?" An otherworldly multi-tonal voice is heard around them, without any indication they were the one to speak.

"Yes" Answers an inhumanly deep voice, befitting the 257 cm beast of a man that spoke. "And I have made some startling discoveries about it, too." The man says, turning to face their visitor. He is wearing an impossibly rich amaranth colored kosode shirt with padded shoulders and an amber rim, a wide gleaming black leather belt with iridium metal thread embroidery on it around their waist, just above knee depth genie pants in rich royal purple with iridescent emerald paisley & peacock feather design embroidery, dark steel blue knee and shin guard reminiscent of Havel's leggings with smoothed metallic black Smelter Demon leggings' shoes and over it all a deep midnight blue full cloak style robe with intricate golden embroidery.

"Pray tell me it's something else than everybody here sharing your fashion sense" Is heard drawled in that alluringly complex voice again, as the figure of black and white cocks their head at the giant several heads taller than them.

"No, no. hn-hn-"***cough***"-nothing like that 'fortunately', but I have discovered the central source of The Scourge's power." The groundshaking voice of the giant man informs, quickly stifling a little humor.

"That sounds bad." Is mused around the monochrome apparition, as it turns its head towards the perpetual sunset behind the massive stained glass in front of them.

"It's worse than you think." Murmurs the giant, returning their gaze to the sunset.

"Plagues. How bad is it?" The disembodied voice curses, while the figure takes in the details of the stained glass mural before it.

"Surely you have noticed the oily, cloying feeling of the reality around us in this world?" Comes a resigned rumbling, while they behold the depiction of a monochrome orange garbed warrior cleaving a tremendous snake with nine heads in two, the sword trailing clear glass in an otherwise polluted background.

The apparition visibly freezes "-Surely that isn't-" being hurriedly muttered around the two.

"It is." Comes the rumbling voice. "This entire reality's basic existential truth, while directly enabling magic, is majorly built around the law of exploitation. To the greatest degree of any world I've been to before, even." The giant dictates grimly, stoic faced.

"Oh for the love of-" Followed by a long string on unintelligible curses, while the black mannequin visibly trembles, fists clenched.

"...I have already taken remedying measures, teaching many locals anti-scarcity based paths to power, such as **Harmony of the Sages** meditation, but progress is slow going." The giant rumbles nearly sorrowfully. "This entire existential sector will have to go into category 5 quarantine, we cannot risk even one of our own adversaries finding this cluster and stripping it bare for all it's worth, especially with its own composition benefiting that."

"Considering The Scourge sourced himself from this world, cat. 5 is kind of light isn't it?" A downtrodden voice is heard, the mannequin now still again.

"It's the limit of my field authority, I'm afraid." The giant sighs. "And it will have to do until my report reaches my superiors." He turns to his smaller friend

"Lets leave then, the sooner this hellhole gets cat. 8 lockdown the better." The apparition turns around in one swift move, tearing open a stable gate into Unreality with a mere snap of its fingers.

"That never ceases to amaze me, by the way." The gigantic man pulls some strange device from his cloak. "Lets go."

They step outside existence together, and activate the quarantine mechanism right 'next to' the reality bubble of the world they just left.

* * *

**Extended multiverse set after Warlock of the Magus World's story. **  
**Leylin had been vanquished at some point by a multiversal champion wielding a sword forged with the laws of mortality, retribution, and death.**  
**Before death he became known as The Black Scourge for his aimless powerlust, borderline insane ruthlessness.  
The immortality from his Path of the Original Sin made him a great nuisance to subdue.**

* * *

omake

"Hey Livy, trace me." The giant says, before disappearing without even a ripple in the world.

Livyatan rolls his obsolete eyes at his friends antics, but cast a retro-activated [follow planar travel], tracing his friend to an empty wasteland.

Staggering, he can't help but ask "By the Plagues Croft! Where is this and what is its hazard!?"

"There is no hazard. This is the Dead Desert." Croftwig Smirks. "The least energized area in this entire world."

"What the fuck hit me there just now then!?"

"A plothole." Croftwig is actually grinning.

Livyatan however lost his steam at that. "A... plothole just almost took a **+lv100 Void Avatar **off balance is what you're saying?"

"Yep!" He replies with faux cheer "But seriously. This place makes no sense." Before sobering up.

"Elaborate then."

"Much like most other worlds, the magic here is supported by a stream of natural, or 'land' energy filtering from the Unreality into the world through its environments. In here that energy is mostly sucked up by the Astral Sea around the planes, but impressive enough quantities still leak through as elemental particles. In here specifically though, the concentration is somehow low enough to penetrate anyone's shielding and sap the energy directly from their magic pools, causing your energy not to return even after meditation. -That in despite that the local 'walking human-nuclear-reactor' magi quite blatantly producing their own energies at the very least after rank 2. -That in despite the fact even another a rank above oneself will have pay a moment of serious focus to penetrate the shielding of a magi here without spells, despite being an entire league above them. The law of exploitation is so excessively strong in this world that not having the nature there to be exploited actively sabotages the people here!"

"...Now that just isn't right, what the fuck."

"So yeah, even if the locals consume stimulants and raw spirit particles every now and then, there is no indication of actually absorbing and retaining natural energy, which means the world itself doesn't understand that the magi are self-sufficient powerhouses that unwittingly draw their power from the Unreality directly. It doesn't understand, and it glitches here, restricting their recovery without law or causality."

"God-dammit, why are the exploitation heavy worlds always somehow like this."


	9. oneshot 4, 2 boogaloo

Naruto

continuing

* * *

After lunch I polished my hand to hand skill on the dummies, employing greater force than before due to necessity, and testing attacks and forms from various series I could remember. Principles of karate, some wushu, muay thai, taekwondo, krav maga, aikido, jujutsu, etc. Granted I never seriously practiced any martial arts, but my hobby was to collect stances and techniques. Various forms of spearhand, chops, palm strikes, different ways to shape a fist, different kicks, transitioning contact strikes, impulse strikes, etc etc. I was particularly pleasantly surprised to find that the principle of Fa Jin was very real here, and blew apart the lower back of one dummy with a relatively soft palm strike to its abdomen. By time for dinner I had demolished the remaining dummies, and lodged an order for cleaning and 20 (the room's closet's capacity) more spares before going to the mess hall. All in all I had a very productive time.

After dinner I reviewed my sealing, and made preliminary experiments with western and scandinavian symbology, languages, and script. Despite my prior knowledge, and new ideas, I made little progress towards inventing my personal branch of sealing. It seems very much that roman script simply isn't suited to the oriental structure of the base sealing method I have, and while futhark runes seemed to hold promise, its likely I'll have to reinvent the runestone style for them to work. Symbological modifications had some interesting reactions I'll have to get to the bottom of later. Refinement of my prior skill and seals went fine however.

I end the day by going to sleep still in my second stage.

And wake in the morning not having reverted. Going through my body with my bloodline shows nothing with my biology, but traces of strange residue along my coils and especially on my tenketsu. Contacting it with my chakra gives an unpleasant feeling of disharmony, and quickly flushes out any of it. Shortly my entire body is clean again. _"Whatever could that be now, am I finding the residue of Oro's imprint in my cursed seal?" _ Directing my attention to the seal in question gives me nothing, as expected, and I'm not going to pry into it just yet.

After a quick check in and morning work out at my personal gym, I return to really focus on my seals. Beginning by collating the expanded structures, or written formula, of all seals both my vessels knew in life. A few variants of summoning, several variants of storage, many variants of elemental conversion and basic shaping, numerous barriers, **four black fogs** and similar vectors, overarching principles of **dark sealing method** for more purposes, and very, very basic theory. Damn how basic theory, really.  
Running the storage varieties through my head and hands again, I make a few quick calculations on their spatial capacities, and a few conjectures on combining them for better access. Employing my superior mathematics, I then calculate the limit of a speculative circularly written storage seal. Didn't honestly think I'd ever be thankful for calculus, but with my first personal style seal in viable prototype phase it's hard not to be. I start experimenting on rings of paper.  
After some number of failed or semi-successful to functional paper rings, I take one of the rings I nabbed from the base miscellaneous inventory, and encase it with my flesh. Without medical jutsu, it's unlikely I'll find out if my MICROSCOPIC DETAIL chakra control extends outside my body, and I don't feel like messing up this seal. I etch the seals on all surfaces of the ring with precision that would make a mainline Uzumaki blush. External surface gets main pocket dimension structures, sides have compartmentalization of that space, and inner surface has the interface for interacting with the seal's space and pulling specific objects. Essentially a ring of hammerspace. Testing it, I cache all of my supplies in front of me in there one by one, and replace them in a random order. _"Working as intended, lets see about making more."_

* * *

*some time*

One day, after the morning workout, I decide to see how many bodies I can assimilate at once. Having dumped the body of the cannon-fodder I used to cure Kimimaro some time ago, the current total is back to two. After some fairly thorough testing, I concluded that both Sakon and Ukon could assimilate three bodies at once, and thus I can hold six's worth including both my own. Almost twice the capacity is good, but not great. I've taken to maintaining maximum capacity, and even then training to phase through targets. My ability is slow to grow.

* * *

*some time*

Having experimented with the pill furnace for the kodoku, and thus learned some of its function, I've been experimenting with alchemical medicine. Mixing herbs and simple plants in various quantities, I've produced many kinds of pills from inert to poisonous to fantastic. Never before had I wished as much to have the ability to 'scan' objects than during the pill refining processes, as I had to experiment on Oro's prisoners and determine the effects from there, exposing my activities to a degree. On the bright side, Kabuto brought me a few booklets on medicines prepared with a pill furnace, on the other, I can practically feel unwanted eyes on me with my expressing uncharacteristic interests. Also unfortunately, no one else seems to have figured out adding your chakra directly into the product while refining, so I remain essentially blind with my alchemical experiments. Fortunately the majority of the recipes provided were only boosted by adding chakra directly, so higher potency medicines were something to expect.

After some time I had managed recipes for several grades of fat management, muscle strengthening, muscle gain, body strengthening, body refinement, etc. pills. Fat management pills either concentrate fat or expel it through the pores depending on the exact recipe, strengthening pills enhance the strength of either muscle fibers, or bones and tendons, or internal organs, muscle gain pills are mostly self-explanatory but with added need to exercise, while body refinement pills purge cocktails of waste products from the body and enhance the performance of both muscles and internal organs.

Funny thing, the body refinement pills interacted with my second stage transformation by bringing my baseline physiology closer to it. I also feel a dull ache on my curse seal and Oro's fragment's influence be flushed out of my system whenever I take refinement pills, but it doesn't worry me until it transition into pain.

It's because Orochi-fucking-maru the psycho doesn't let me harmonize with the fragment in the seal. I've tried meditating to bring my 'wavelength' closer to the fragment's, but it stubbornly shifts it whenever I get close, keeping its influence a disharmonious contaminant. But it matters not, I already have plans for the creepy little thing, and am forging modified 'pill' furnaces for my purposes.

* * *

*some time*

I'm playing the happy little bioengineer. The Spiders clan has been making good use of my unique talents, and I've been instrumental in upsetting the status quo in the summoning animal realm.  
They've granted me my request for a spider body, along with several organs. Beginning from a tarantula base, I add (enough to) compound eyes in a mixed wolf- and ogre spider formation, the ability to draw said eyes into its carapace along with a camera shutter-like mechanism for eyelids, give it all possible poisons I can, make it able to both spit silk from its fangs and spray it from its spinnerets, silk is reinforced and jet black, make cosmetic improvements to its mouthparts, add hidden camel spider jaws, make it able to taste what it eats, and a few other fun things. Ultimately it becomes a five by five meter giant monstrosity, and I'll have to work on my assimilation capacity some more to accommodate it.  
The Warrior branch among the Spiders clan is awed by my creation, even if they do find it somewhat grotesque. The other branches and lesser families find it all too (or just right) brutish and ugly.

* * *

*some time*

I have found out why the curse seals are so sucky. Having prepared a mimic expander formula, I extended the first stage of the across my entire body, and then the floor and walls and finally off of me, letting me freely study its structure. Had to be quick about it due to Oro' being sure to flay me if he ever found out, but apart from being extensive, the seal was surprisingly simple. And that was the problem, see. It was too simple, and thus clunky and inefficient. Thus Mind Awakening Pill. Thus I had to manually adjust my inner tenketsu to accommodate the economy grade sage chakra from the seal. Apart from Oro' finding a way to quantify soulmass for containment purposes, and an unorthodox but effective parasitism system for the seal, it was all built on the seal-equivalent of basic arithmetic. No exponents or their roots, no logarithms, no calculus. Nothing sophisticated. _"What the hell... really?"_ The encryption was fairly impressive, as was the amount of diversions mixed in, but behind it all it was pitiful.  
Really it exemplified Orochimaru as a person; the so called scientist who would be content to call a one in ten survival chance for his experiments a success. _"If it works (no matter how utterly badly), then it_ _works."_ It would have been trivial for me to rewrite the entire damn thing, if not for the fact it was almost-mostly composed of fail-safes to kill its host if tampered with. Good thing Oro' has provided for almost indefinitive life-support technology with **Four Black Fogs**. So I can just arrange compressed sealing formula around the cursed seal to perform the desired modifications triggered by a near-death state.

I had prepared increasingly large refining furnaces for various purposes, and it was fairly simple to repurpose a few to include **Four Black Fogs** and **Dark Sealing Method** functions. For the alchemical component, I'll overdose on body refinement pills along with even more mind awakening pills. Having set up everything, I step into the human sized cauldron, imbibe my mixture, and collapse underneath the dark smog. The curse seal burns like when the twins first received it, my flesh feels like molten liquid barely molded by my skin, the pain is worse than the worm's poison from when I let it bite me the first meeting. Unconsciousness does not claim me for whatever reason, but my vision does go black after a moment, my ears deafening along with it.  
Senses clearing, I behold a dark space. There is a small white snake in front of me.

_**"Whoo daresss interfere with the **__**Great**_**_ Orochiimaru!?"_**

I look at the blatant soul fragment with well-concealed bafflement. **"You dare presume your standing here within me, mere cast-off scale!"  
**

_**"Foolisshh mortal, possturing ssoo even knowing my nature! I will conss**__**uume you and be greater for it!"**_

The snake swells into a tremendous king cobra while growing sickly looking.

**"Foolish worm! It is I Who will consume you!"** I roar even as it lunges at me, not noticing my having only one horn.

I am swallowed in a single bite, as the snake closes its eyes in apparent contentment, _**"Aaah..."**_ not regaining any of its luster. A wave ripples through the space, _**"What! How!"**_ and it flails about attempting to see its source. _**"You! How did you esscape!? I sstill feel you within my stomach!"**_

**"Do you truly." **I muse from on top of the summoned spider body I made for myself. **"I see you are more foolish than I thought."** Lines and calligraphy in my styles begin to cover the snake, even as it grows more and more pallid.

_**"NO! How! It can't be!" **_The serpent howls in agony, as the seals begin to sear into its scales, immobilizing it.

I direct the spider to pounce onto the soul fragment, while I also slip through its forehead. We merge again as the spider begins its gruesome feeding on the helpless snake. Invisible fumes noxious to my bloodline enhanced senses burst from the serpent from the first grinding bite, but my exposure to the worm poison has left me resistant enough, and the spider's own repertoire of toxins leaves it even better off. Within moments the arachnid has reduced the once great snake into a fuming sphere of crushed scale and bone, while it continues to rotate it, brushing it with its several tongue-tendrils covered with corrosive venom and digestive enzymes.

I wait and observe the restructuring from within the seal space. Reconnecting to my body I see that the combined medicine has fully naturalized my sage transformation, giving me a more masculine appearance all the while. Returning my attention to the reforming seal, I seize it with my intent, and rework it even further. From transformation catalyst and storage into and sage filter and locus...

The spider has consumed what could be consumed from the fragment, so I incinerate the bolus with several **Demon Fox Lanterns**. The seal snaps into place around the space, organic in appearance from the inside, and suspiciously reminiscent of the seal of binding from Hollow Knight. I quickly give shape to a small forested swamp and direct the spider to settle in its new habitat, before sharply turning around.

I awaken in the material world, and disembark the cauldron. That Orochimaru is not here waiting for me is a promising sign. I test my ability to control my new natural sage transformation, in and out of second stage, repeatedly. Settling for out of it, I reach out for my renovated curse seal, and the familiar blotches now spread out much further from eachother, connected by thin organic cobweb patterns. The sense of power given by the seal is now much clearer, as there is no disharmony to hinder it, nor any mental corruption to numb it. "_Should I Say, I feel truly alive again." _

* * *

*some time*

Orochimaru was in a great mood. Kimimaro Kaguya's possession had gone over without a hitch, and even made it possible for him to seamlessly finalize his true form, correcting its many deficiencies with nearly insulting ease. He was presently walking to bedroom to enjoy a good night's rest in celebration. He could actually _feel_ the power now thrumming in his bones, the possibilities this gave him in developing jutsu!

***kukuku*** "Now what's this?" he mutters, finding a rather large sealed envelope on his personal nightstand, a place off limits to anyone else ever. Opening it revealed a rather detailed essay on the human genome, with diagrams and all.

"What? Telomeres, cellular age, stem cells, biological immortality and possible physiological constraints?" He whispered under his breath, utterly awed by the comprehensive report on his longtime dream. The otherwise deep silence around him being constantly interrupted by such mutterings as he perused the envelope's contents

**"WHAT! WHO DARED!?"** He roared, almost but not quite dropping the envelope, as he reached the enclosed message detailing the liberties taken with his vessel turned underling. Old shinobi paranoia kicking in as he imagined all the other things that could have been foisted upon him in this form in such a manner.

**"This impudent little cur-" ** Orochimaru began to curse as he read on, detailing how the newly individual **Yakon** had surreptitiously stolen two of the sound five, negating most of his authority over the twos' cursed seals in the process, what he had done to his own cursed seal, and that while they much appreciated the opportunities given they had no intention of remaining his pawns any longer thank you very much. Also something about chakra theory and developing jutsu without hand seals as mnemonics, but frankly he was too livid to take notice.

**"RAAAAAAGGHHHHH!"** The entire compound shook with its Lord Orochimaru's rage.


	10. oneshot 5, kyuubi self insert

Naruto

now for something else entirely

* * *

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After the whole Mizuki incident, Naruto had been taken to the Hokage's office to finalize his field promotion.

"Ne, Jiji, am I really the Kyuubi?" Naruto asked the Hokage as they sat in his office relaxing after the disaster.

"No, Naruto," the Hokage said firmly. "I promise you, no."

"But how do you know for sure?" Naruto pressed. "All of the villagers scowl at me and call me monster and demon. So how do you know? Maybe Yondaime messed up and I really am the fox."

"Hmm," Sarutobi mused. "Well, let me show you something." He reached into a drawer and pulled out two items.

"What is this?" he asked, holding one of them up.

"Your pipe?" Naruto answered.

"And this?"

"A scroll?" Naruto was confused.

"Right. Now watch." Naruto watched carefully as the Old man wrote some characters onto the scroll then set the pipe on top of the writing and activated it with a flash of chakra. It disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Do you know what I did?" the Hokage asked; Naruto shook his head. "I used fuuinjutsu to seal the pipe into the scroll. Now what is this?" He held up the finished product.

"Er, a scroll with a pipe sealed into it?"

"Correct, as far as it goes," the Hokage allowed. "But is this a scroll or a pipe?"

"A scroll."

"Exactly," the Hokage said, pleased. "Now do you understand?"

It took Naruto a few moments to grasp what Sarutobi was getting at, and then the lights went on.

"Oooh," he said, understanding. "So I'm not the Kyuubi then." Sandaime shook his head in agreement.

"The Kyuubi is just… imprisoned inside me. And held there by a seal," he said. The Sandaime nodded.

Afterwards, they continued to make idle smalltalk for a while longer, until Naruto tuckered out from the days events and was delivered to his apartment by ANBU.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Naruto was feeling more relaxed than he could ever remember to feeling in his dingy bed before. In fact, it almost felt like he was laying on a blanket of soft, lush grass while a mellow sun shone warmth upon him.

"Nggghh, whaa?" He groaned while sitting up, opening his groggy eyes.

The scenery that greeted him was that of a vast green hill, with colossal torii being visible in the distance, rubble from stone pillars surrounding the hill he sat on, a highly stylized sun floating high above.

**"Finally awake I see."** A massive voice rumbles behind Naruto, and he turns around with a jolt all the while standing up.

Naruto can only gape in horror as he beholds the gargantuan dark red fox with eleven tails.

"-Wait? Eleven tails?" He asks dumbly as his brain catches onto the fact.

**"Indeed. You appear surprised for some reason." **The fox comments while unmistakably raising its eyebrow.

"I was supposed to have the Kyuubi sealed in me?" Naruto asks uncertainly.

***hmmm* "Oh dear, you didn't honestly believe the humans when they said you weren't the nine tails, right?" **The gigantic fox answers glibly, not that Naruto could appreciate that nuance.

"Bu- but- Jiji said- Jiji wouldn't lie to- I can't be-" Naruto, did he know the word, would have noticed he was hyperventilating, if he was not having a mental breakdown.

The big fox simply continues to dumbly observe Naruto gibbering to himself for a few more moments, before drawing attention to himself again.

***COUGH COUGH* "You gullible idiot! Of course you aren't the Kyuubi no Yoko! I don't see any majestic fur or alluring tails or do you?!"**

Bu- Wait. That's right, if I was the fox, where're my tails?" Naruto snaps back to reality, and tries to bend himself to look at his hindquarters.

***Sigh* "Alright, alright. You see, I only just ascended to my new tail-count, and had this one-of-a-kind prank opportunity so of course I took it. How was I supposed to know you couldn't take a joke?" **The big fox explained tiredly.

"HEY! That was a terrible joke!" Naruto denies.

**"A bad joke maybe, but a good prank?"** The fox grins back.

* * *

flashback no jutsu

I wake up feeling unpleasantly soggy. Grumbling to myself I stand up... on four legs?

**"What the fuck?" **I say out loud as I open my eyes, only to see a terribly familiar cage in a terribly familiar sewer. I look at my own body and reflection, and see that I've become the blasted fox.

**"Kami dammit, why this."** I groan. Something turns my attention inwards however, and I fall into a nearly meditative state as I pursue the odd sensation.

_"Unpleasant miasma clearing? My chakra being purified of something... THAT'S KURAMA'S HATE AND MALICE DISSIPATING! No way am I letting all that just evaporate, I might still need it for something!" _I mentally grab onto the nearly vestigial darkness lingering in my chakra, and after a moment of deliberation, stretch it into a ribbon, twist it into a knot, and tie it ends together, forming a circular pretzel from hatred.

_"Phew, now lets see if the allegedly strongest bijuu with the most useless skill had made any use of its ability to sense dark emotional forces... Aand not a single jutsu or talisman or even trick apart from plain old killing intent. Why." _

Meanwhile I was not paying attention to it, the now self-perpetuating knot of hate had settled into a tail of its own, total to ten tails, only to catalyze some sort of reaction with the rest of my chakra.

**"Wait what-" **Is all I manage to react before a feeling of savory richness pulsing through my form overcomes me and drives me back into unconsciousness.

Waking up, my chakra feels far more inherently sinister, but no longer rages with poorly concealed vitriol. My bodily awareness informs me I now have eleven tails.

**"My poor head, what happened." **I whine while testing my new composition. Where once overly heated and salty water raged, now smoothly courses almost opaque oil. **"Huh. Had to fucking die twice and gestalt with a planarly foreign mortal before I could ascend, typica- wait what am I going on about?" **I idly voiced, before stopping to better think things through.

_"So Kurama had repeatedly petitioned with yokai courts for status as a demon lord, rather than an embodied force of nature? Damn, I went and unwittingly transposed all my bijuu-chakra into yoki. The self sustaining core of malice without the accompanying tunnel vision must have reacted to Kurama's long time attempt to fully come to his title?"_

**"Fucking great." *hmmmmm* "I wonder if the seal was designed for a bijuu alone, or if it is actually capable of holding a demon lord?" **I muse, eyeing the cage. Taken with the whim, I idly grab the thicker part where the paper seal and lock were, and casually rip it off of the bars, which promptly swing open.

**"HUH?"** I gesticulate dumbly, staring at the container for my container's parents' chakra imprints now in my hand.

**"Alright then. Lets see if I can renovate this dumb with my newly achieved freedom."**

* * *

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**"But we are getting ahead of ourselves, may I have your name?" **The fox smiles, holding its hand out palm upwards.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki! Dattebayo!" Naruto introduces himself all too loudly and enthusiastically. The fox's smile turns sinister as it instantly clenches its hand into a fist as Naruto started the first syllable of his verbal tic. Naruto has a sudden terrible sinking feeling.

***TSK TSK* "You didn't even suspect. Have you learned nothing from the tales about yokai and names? And you call yourself a shinobi. To _introduce_ myself, I am Jasei."**

Jasei lifts his hand to his jaws, and swallows a gently glowing sphere.

**"For now I will hold on to your name, runt, and you are thus beholden to me. A name gives a yokai great power and control over their thrall, so observe, ANBU codename_ Kitten._"**

Naruto jerks back from hearing the alias, then falls unconscious mid motion falling backwards. Waking up in his apartment covered in cold sweat, Naruto sprint to restroom to check his shoulder to ensure all those terrible memories were just a bad dream. To his horror, he finds an ANBU seal tattooed there.

* * *

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"Complete the hand seal, runt, you have much to learn." Jasei's humanoid specter tells Naruto, draped over him with his left hand providing the horizontal part of the cross hand seal for shadow clone.

Naruto complies uncharacteristically quietly, and the room fills with shadow clones of both of them. "Go, you all know what is required of you." Jasei instructs after a moment of stillness. The Jasei clones shepherd the Naruto clones outside, while having them henge.

"Why make shadow clones?" Naruto asks soberly.

"You should read jutsu descriptions better, runt. A mere solid clone wouldn't end up a forbidden jutsu. The shadow clone transfers memories and experiences back to its user, the strain of receiving which can even be lethal." Jasei explains, "Everything they learn, you do too. Everything they train, you will have as well. Apart from chakra control and muscle growth, but those are exceptions." Who knew knowledge extracted from dozens of devoured jounin would be so precise?

* * *

"What's wrong, runt? I can almost see the bloodstains you seem to think taint your hands." Jasei asks, indeed exploiting the psychic link between them to observe Naruto's hallucination.

Startled, Naruto lashes out with reflexes he shouldn't have, embedding his index and middle fingers squarely into Jasei's adams apple. "Wha- no-no-no I can't not again it isn't real it was just a game-" He begins gibbering again.

Shocked still, a flash of dreadful recognition filters through Jasei's face. _"God Hand Death Touch, an adaptation of Hokuto no Shinken for a world with a better established magic system, and one more focused on meridian strikes than being a power fantasy martial art. But how do I _know_ this, I never took the time to fully design a complete fantasy martial art..." _Thinking furiously while calmly stepping back from Naruto frozen mid-kata, his throat phasing into perfect normalcy as the fingers slid out. _"Could it be, I mean Kurama was already educated on actual yokai court and demon lord etiquette, it wouldn't be inconceivable if-"_

**"Stand, _Uzumaki, _your idleness is unbecoming." **A brief golden glow emanates from Naruto's form as he receives his surname back. _"Accursed Kami! That surge was unmistakably the Mandate of Heaven, -and I held that plot device in arrest for an entire eight hours."_ Flexing his vessel's chakra to create a shadow clone of himself on the roof of apartment building, and waiting but a moment, Jasei receives the experience of how to use his yoki to activate a limited true-sight, and the memory that at least Konoha is covered in a demonic seal sourced curse of despair. _"Fucking typical... and now I have to comfort the kid until an internal therapy no jutsu kicks in on him now that he no longer feels the full brunt of the abuse he's received."_

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"The blood is still there." Naruto whispers.

"Of course it is, you have nothing here to wash it off with." Jasei retorts, wiping a small smudge off of Naruto hallucination, ...and licking his now bloody finger clean.

Naruto stares in bafflement for a single moment, before bolting into the restroom at a speed that would have given him the nickname 'Orange Blur' if enemy shinobi were there to see it. Grateful prayers are heard mumbled from his direction after the brief sound of flowing water stops.

* * *

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AN:

Lets see,  
\- Celestial kami  
\- Infernal demons  
\- Earthly yokai and kami  
\- bijuu  
\- yoki  
\- demon lord!Kurama  
\- mandate of heaven. basis for therapy no jutsu, plot armor and improbable skills of Naruto  
\- ANBU childhood transplanted into Naruto  
\- crossover reference techniques and martial arts

Merging with the self insert has finally elevated Kurama into yokai-hood, except at the cost of his original personality. Self insert unwittingly ensures this ascension attempting to salvage Kurama's carefully (but not carefully enough) cultivated reserves of hate, thinking the fox had jutsu that benefited from being so malicious. Self Insert names himself Jasei.

Self insert becomes much darker, and proceeds to start to powerlevel Naruto for the hell of it. If anyone asks, it's because such a weak vessel would be disgraceful. In a rather controversial move, he starts by retroactively bloodying Naruto by implanting the story of a potential childhood in ANBU to Naruto's mind and memories, exploiting his power over the kid from owning his name.

Taking Naruto surname however also took the inherited Mandate of Heaven from Naruto, and the small ball of sunshine was utterly depended on the force of divine goodness to keep him sane with a childhood as an openly hated village pariah. Things almost end badly, but the blatant plot device overtly stealing foreign-world knowledge to _also_ powerlevel its host keys self insert onto the fact something fishy is going on.  
Konoha, and a few of the Daimyo palaces are under an infernal seal-dome that cause a subtle curse of despair within them. The best courses of action become difficult to grasp and worse options more tempting, while the hateful and sinful qualities of those within are bolstered.

Later, it turns out that the vast majority of techniques self insert attempted to see what was viable in narutoverse were successful here. Thoughts of more destructive techniques the Mandate could have stolen give the self insert a scare.

Next up evaluating the many females in his hosts life, powerleveling them as well, and pulling subtle strings to set up a harem for Naruto later on.  
\- Practicing seikuken and other defensive or soft styles while Hinata is watching, inspiring the sweet little stalker to develop her own gentle palm in contrast to the gentle fist. (protective eight trigrams sixtyfour palms is such an epic jutsu, why couldn't it be canon.)  
\- Finding out if inner Sakura is a quasi-kami aspect as a bloodline, or if the girl is just insane like that. Figuring out the limits of her chakra control.  
\- Teaching a suitable fallback martial art to Tenten so she has something other than weapons alone.  
\- Taunting Ino into using her clan jutsu on Naruto, then training her in the mindscape.  
\- Taking a look at Anko's cursed seal and seeing if it's proofed for undistilled yoki, and demon lord grade unsealing.  
\- Finding out if prayer reaches mother Kaguya in her lunar prison, and if she's a valid goddess as well. If possible apply therapy no jutsu.


	11. oneshot 6, expanded SI cross-concept

bleach  
multiverse crossover featuring moi

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So this is an asauchi..." I muse, moving my gaze across the simple blade. "Best get to it, then."

Sheathing the sword, I assume a meditation pose with the katana across my lap. A deep breath and I mostly relax my body. Bringing my 'awareness' back into phase with this reality, I wrap my aural pseudopods around the asauchi, bringing my soul into contact with it. Foreign world benefits and all that, this should save me some time.

I quickly fall inwards in meditation, easily reaching my sea of consciousness. Thanks to the asauchi, rather than being greeted with a simpler void, an entire inner world automatically constructs itself around me. _"An Amerindian atlantis? Not something I expected." _I note, having materialized into a deserted underwater metropolis built in ancient styles from central- and southern America. _"Perhaps something to do with my dreams? I faintly recall an underwater ruin much like this one..." _I ponder idly, entering kakuja state and extending my wings.

_"Where is the zanpakto spirit? surely it must be here somewhere if I reached this space in the first place." _I mull after completing an entire round of the city, without seeing anything animate. _"Actually, is there anything _above_ the water? That might explain the finite nature of the lake ruin, and provide for the location of the asauchi..."_ I turn to swim outwards from the ruin center.

Reaching the shore, I pull myself onto land while dismissing my kakuja. Not too far from the waterfront I find a writhing amorphous globe of something. Circling it, I ponder on the implications of my impatience and finding the asauchi before my zanpakuto could imprint from it.

"Join with me, withered seed of a depleted hollow." I intone as I press my hand into its surface, sending the globe into violent convulsions until it finally splits in two. The portion that fell to my left was much like a sack, and rapidly blackened, while the portion to my right quickly stabilized into a large white egg.

Something squirmed within the saggy black mass, until sanguine claws tore it open. The dark figure contained lifted itself to a hunched squat, while the membrane disintegrated around it. It was covered in a thin coat of smooth sable fur, with a much fluffier layer of thicker shaggy hairs, the rippling muscles of a successful predator plainly visible underneath both. Its body was mostly humanoid, except with a furry tail, satyr-like legs, and jagged four-way-split hooves. Its hands brought werewolves to mind with how the rather large claws seamlessly merged into human-like fingers. Upon its head sat two ribbed and curving horns, its face a demonic mix between a man's, a goat's, and a panther's.

Suddenly it took a deep breath of the inner world air, exposing several inches of a blue tongue in the process, and immediately fell into a coughing fit. Its eyes having opened soon after, they were revealed to be horizontal slits with red irises on green sclera.

Leaving it to its acclimation, I turn to take a look to my right, to where the egg fell. There it is, and this half seems to have much more trouble manifesting, as the egg occasionally rocks about, but has not hatched yet. I move close enough to restrain the egg.

"Struggle once for no, twice for yes. Do you need help hatching?" A short pause, and two struggles. The krampus look-alike briefly eyes me before going back to getting its breathing under control.

I rap the side of the egg with my middle knuckles, feeling the toughness of the shell. Raising my hand for a knife hand strike, I bring it down swiftly to a reasonably resounding and satisfying crack. A clean fracture appears halfway across the circumference of the eggshell. Taking a step back again, I look as fracture extends and branches, until a single milky pale arm bursts through the shell.

*GASP* "Free at last!" A soft voice calls out, as the rest of the figure breaks apart the shell from around it, revealing a feminine body. The figure revealed as the eggshell crumbles into nothing is a half-serpent humanoid with pearly scales making up its skin, ranging from one inch wide at the arms and back, to practically invisible at the hands and face. Gleaming amber eyes with vertically slit pupils peek from under indistinct green snakes for hair, and a few meters of tail unfurls to its true length. Its facial features would give credence to the 'ethereal' kind of beauty often mentioned mentioned in tales about faeries, this time with notable serpentine aesthetics.

"Brother, dear, is everything alright?" The... lamia? pouts after noticing the condition of its twin spirit.

*cough* "No- *wheeze* fair, that *hack* you get to *cough cough* breathe straight away!" The demonic satyr manages through its coughing.

"Ah, but see, you were out so much more easily!" The gorgon retorts smugly.

I just stand there looking at the two as they continue to bicker. After a few moments, the satyr's coughing begins to ease,

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Returning to the real world, I slowly open my eyes without changing my posture. My asauchi has turned into two much different weapons. Unsheathing each for a brief look, I find a knife from my home country, and a greek-looking sword. _"Sword and dagger, huh, fitting."_

* * *

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Say, Mayuri, I have a sample of these very curious cells, would you be willing to barter for your methods to modify zanpakuto?" I ask, presenting a small cell culture from my kagune and kakuhou.

*HMMMMMMM* "You'll find my notes in the zanpakuto folder on my computer. Now, gimmegimme- oh I have so many experiments to run~"

Needless to say, Mayuri becomes absolutely ecstatic over such multipotent cells. Also, Nemu will never be the same again.

* * *

Zanpakuto.  
Being a planeswalker analogue, with ability-sets from different worlds and magic systems, the zanpakuto spirit mutates slightly from imprinting traits it cannot naturally manifest, preemptively barring access to future bankai.

krampus likeness  
• name:  
\- Knuutstallo  
• sealed shape:  
\- a large sami knife like blade with an engraved antler stump handle, a sheath made from curly birch with designs burned onto it.  
• shikai: "disturb the dark skies."  
\- the initial release takes the shape of an ornamental bracer made of antler and an embroidered fingerless leather glove.  
• abilities:  
\- river of flying stars. the shikai can infinitely conjure bare blades reminiscent of the sealed state; these are meant to be thrown, but can be wielded in close range as well.  
\- vampire wraith. any cut that bleeds, instead produces wisps of lurid red fire, as the blood of the victim is ignited like a candle. the flames speed up blood-loss, and the burns that grow around them do not cauterize the wounds.  
\- fox-fire. dragging the zanpakuto against another weapon drapes it in undulating arcs of azure aurora, draining heat from, and even freezing anything struck by the weapon. the technique can be released in large wave of freezing aurora.  
\- wildfire. the zanpakuto can create long tongues of emerald aurora, which rapidly electrocute anything they come to contact with. these coil and writhe on their own, but can be controlled for specific shapes or greater precision.  
• trivia:  
\- the spirit's appearance is based on krampus, nuuttipukki, satanic imagery. the name comes from the transliteration of 'nuutti', and stallo, a Sami cannibal spirit.  
\- abilities are based on myths surrounding northern lights. some Sami tribes believed them to be the spilled blood of the restless dead, while a better known finnic folklore is that they originate from the glittering dust of a fox swishing its tail on snow, and finally in Australia, some aboriginal tribes considered aurora australis to be wildfires on the spiritual realm.

gorgon likeness  
• name:  
\- Marmuldra  
• sealed shape:  
\- a longer variant of a xiphos, a hand-and-half grip made of ivory, a sheath wrapped in snakeskin.  
• shikai: "cement the clear heavens."  
\- takes the shape of a stylish khopesh, longsword length with an engraved blade, made of amber metal with a two-handed hilt wrapped with ambiguous repitle leather.  
• abilities:  
\- gorgon venom. the blade itself is coated in venom, and any living matter poisoned by it begins to petrify into ambiguous stone based on the amount of the venom it was exposed to. inorganic things turn into marble instead. performing konso with the shikai on a petrification victim reverses the state.  
\- gargoyle. creatures petrified by the zanpakuto become 'living statues' that can be puppeted by the zanpakuto.  
\- algol thrall. embedding the blade into solid stone permits the creation of marble golems. the golems are feminine humanoids with tangled masses of curly horns for hair, black sclera and purple irises on slitted white pupils. the exact shape of the creation is up to whims of the zanpakuto. the golems emanate a sinister aura, and remaining in close proximity of one will eventually cause petrification. each golem can also release a single wave of petrifying light from its eyes, shattering itself in the process.  
• trivia:  
\- based on medusa and the gorgons, and modern pop-culture iterations of both. name comes from the etymology of marble, and huldra, a Scandinavian forest spirit.  
\- abilities based on petrification, and extrapolated uses of it. snake venom coagulates blood, not quite petrifying it eh. algol thrall in particular is inspired by 'problem children are coming from another world, aren't they'.

* * *

Modifications to zanpakuto  
Being a planeswalker analogue, it is possible to alter the zanpakuto to have modified releases in ways and levels Mayuri can only dream of.

Knuutstallo  
• "strike true." Ulfberth  
\- an executioner style greatsword with a prominent round tip, made of nearly black metal with a purple tint, the handle wrapped with amber leather. The surface of the rune matrix is visible as thin ivory patterns on the blade.  
\- a separate sword forged with adamantine, specifically pattern welded to form a massive rune / symbol / seal matrix with the differential composition.  
\- This sword would naturally carry the property of indestructibility, and could thus sunder almost anything that meets it head on. the rune matrix would imbue it with the property of wounding, making it possible for the blade to damage otherwise untouchable targets.  
• "bleed dry." Cainabel  
\- a stiletto of pale metal, ornately engraved in obscurely religious tones, a handle of nacre with rubies on the crossguard. a sanguine pulse of noxious energy occasionally passing through the engravings.  
\- forged of alchemical silver and enhanced with copious amounts of both bone marrow ash and vampire dust. the blade steeped with vampiric miasma and the grooves slick with vampiric poisons. engraved with a form of runic magic.  
\- carries a vampirism property against any target that bleeds, a silvered property which applies against everyone and even some objects, a necrotic property where the blade wounds the spirit as much as flesh, and the poison converts the vital polarity of blood it comes to contact with to negative. grants hemokinesis mostly limited to the dagger itself.

Marmuldra  
• "bleed away" Absinthum  
\- a strongly undulating short sword with a vaguely serpentine pamor, snake jaws as guard where the upper jaw is parallel to the blade, and an ebony handle carved flowery designs, ending in a opium seedpod pommel. the blade itself has a greenish tint, and it is coated with purple tinted poison.  
\- an inversion of the poison from the zanpakutou itself mixed into the alloy, the poison as a result of psychedelic ingredients (think toriko) forged into the blade.  
\- the blade softens things cut by it, eventually into a putty-like state, and the poison causes sensory perception to warp like molten wax with movement and rotation, distorting all of vision, hearing, smell, touch, equilibrium, etc.  
• "rise to surface." A Thousand Bone Lotus Blossoms  
\- a spine-like ridged stiletto extending from a lotus flower shaped guard with a swept hilt, a plain handle, and a skull themed pommel.  
\- extensively modified from the zanpakuto's original abilities. This modification links the zanpakuto to an arbitrary number of prearranged reanimated skeletons folded and enchanted into flowers, and manifests them by decoagulating the surrounding landscape into a murky swamp. The zanpakuto directly links its wielder with the skeletal flowers.  
\- this is entirely supplemental to the magical 'awareness' and the skeletons are all enchanted to act as focal points for the 'magical limb'. this means that upon activation, the might and number of the 'magical limbs' available is directly augmented by the number of skeletons brought out.

* * *

Alternatively, if a single spirit  
discarded because lacking suitable base abilities, as cutting ability is nice, but rather one dimensional.

• name:  
\- Väenvalta  
• sealed shape:  
\- an unremarkable shashka saber, made of barely noticeable damascus steel, and matte gold instead of brass on the handle, the modest sheath also made of high quality wood.  
• shikai: "rend apart all creation."  
\- a somewhat traditional katana, 1m blade with a strong contrast between the edge and back with a gleaming hamon in the middle, a mokumegane tsuba combined with a plain dark iron crossguard, the handle wrapped in pearly white silk with gleaming dragonhide peeping from under the cloth.  
• abilities:  
\- tracks of starlight. the zanpakuto cuts space as it does matter, meaning that direct physical defenses are meaningless against it. it can be stopped by applying force from the sides, or by an indirect barrier, but otherwise it cuts anything.  
\- dark of the night sky. the blade is as immaterial as it is physical, and it flickers between illusion and reality with ease. the zanpakuto harms only what its wielder desires to, and phases through all else as if it was an illusion.  
• trivia:  
\- name is almost literally 'violence' in finnish, and the somewhat poetic misspelling alludes to the rule of the finnish fair folk.  
\- inspired by various myths and stories of swordsmen cutting things clean in half, and then joining the halves with no apparent damage done. thus the zanpakuto is a sword that cuts anything, and, or nothing.


	12. onsehot 7, naruto ideas and dumb

Naruto omakes

* * *

Do you ever feel like weapon-users get no love?

Madara had just absorbed the God Tree, and was wiping the floor with Naruto and Sasuke.

Meanwhile a dozen kilometers away.

"Ahhhh. 28 kg of chakra forged tungsten shaped into a spear. check." The unidentified shinobi says. "Long distance specialized byakugan; I can follow the action from here. check." They caress the rod of metal. "Lightning chakra affinity with understanding of chakra based electromagnetics? _Check._"

They pick up the unwieldy weapon with hands glowing with chakra and sparkling with lightning. Soon the weapon is surrounded by electricity, and floats on its own.

"Massively displaced **eye of divination**? check." They snarl while pointing the spear precisely at the center of action.

"You are within the range of my divination. Bitch." They utter with clear vitriol, right before-

***BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM* **

The spear is launched by the jutsu approximation of an ideal rail-gun.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Back again with the show, Naruto and Sasuke had just countered their first limbo clone, and Madara had, generously said, paused to contemplate that while flying towards Kakashi.

Suddenly, his attention shifts far away as sage mode desperately attempts to warn him of something, just as a seemingly kilometer long pole of molten metal impales him. Only an instant later, his body around the pole is vaporized, leaving him with the uppermost quarter of his ribcage and everything above, as well as legs below the knees. Immediately afterwards the pole disappears, apparently embedded into the ground quite far away.

Kakashi could barely follow what occured, fighting against falling unconscious from the strain on his sharingan. Sasuke was scared shitless from nearly getting impaled himself. Naruto noticed something was happening, but couldn't follow it, seeing as he was not threatened.

In real time, only miniscule fractions of seconds had passed, since the launch, but to the absurdly heightened perception of the fighters, it may as well have been weeks before the sonic boom caught the projectile, scattering what remained of Madara's corpse, blasting Kakashi somewhere, and severely staggering Naruto and Sasuke.

The God Tree slowly regrew from the small remaining piece of Madara's heart, but by then Black Zetsu had lost the living avatar to use for his mother's resurrection, ruining his plans.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Alternatively.

Madara had just finished a proper villanous laugh at his resurrection and launched himself at Hashirama. Just as he was about to grab the zombie, however, Tobi-motherfucking-rama hiraishins in front of his brother with a short sword, and decapitates him.

"Fucking Uchiha... (mumble mumble) '"No brother, you can't make sure he's dead, that would be maiming a corpse and that's wrong."' You see my point NOW, Hashi?" Tobirama complains, while Hashirama squats behind him, blinking at Madara's falling corpse.

"Huh. That was much less excitement than I thought it would be." The shodai Hokage enunciates after a moment.

roll credits.

* * *

Simple matters

"I don' get it Jiji! Why I gotta be all sneak' an' boring!?"

"Hmmm, well, Naruto... Think of it as a prank, ninjas are constantly pranking everyone by remaining hidden or unrecognized." Sarutobi explains after a flash of utter brilliance in towards getting Naruto to be less conspicuous.

"A prank? HMMMMM!" Naruto ponders for a moment with the painfully exaggerated focus before his featuring shift to one of his trademark fox-grins.

_"Oh no. What have I done now." _The old hokage realizes with a sinking feeling that he just told Naruto he _should _keep pranking even after becoming a shinobi.

"See ya Jiji!" Naruto yells from the doors, disappearing behind them before Sarutobi could rectify his mistake.

As it happens, Naruto isn't seen for weeks, and only the honest guarantees of the many sensor-nin on duty that he is still in the village kept the political scene stable in any way. The same sensor-nin that could barely tell the difference between north and south due to Naruto's aura befitting his chakra levels.

When Naruto is finally spotted again, it was because he was laughing so hard at something or other that his henge slipped. Everyone that mattered were so relieved with finding the jinchuuriki that questioning why his henge couldn't be penetrated by the village dojutsu clans slipped their minds. Danzo, having seen and received extensive reports of even his own root failing to find the boy who thought it was a all prank made sure to drown the traitorous thoughts about the way of the shinobi with more than twice his body weight in sake. His being delivered to the hospital for alcohol poisoning by anonymous nin keyed Sarutobi into the fact that root was still active though, and only a timely diversion in his treatment by the canny old man kept Danzo out of it long enough for the third hokage to get his act together enough to fool his old teammate again.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

After learning shadow clone, Naruto is quick to put one and two together, and decides that saturating the village with henged shadow clones is obviously the natural conclusion here. He himself, the real Naruto, arrives hopelessly late to the beat down on Mizuki, seeing as the many clones he left laying around took it to themselves to set things straight. Ultimately, it remains the real one that receives the headband.

In the late morning Naruto realizes he knows everything every clone that dispelled knew... because one them went to Ichiraku's for ramen and burst in the skirmish that caused among the clones. Poor Teuchi's face when his best customer was assaulted and 'disappeared' by copies of himself that then also experienced that.

The Naruto clone that had decided to infiltrate the ANBU overnight also realized something equally important, made a clone, and dispersed it, informing Naruto and all other clones that the information is a blanket update, and not solely for the original. That act being regular occurrence in the ANBU headquarters as only a fraction of their members are on duty at any given moment and they often send off solid clones in plain chakra smoke shunshins on errands suddenly also fixed that clone's cover. Nobody paid any attention on the 'kitsune' designated mask. The providence assisted henge Naruto invented had duplicated ANBU traits down to the sealwork in their tattoo to get past the security seals, not that he knew.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A few of the clones had decided to start mapping out the forests with no change of being seen, and had henged into a melange of woodland critters, and eventually, foxes included. The association was enough to rouse the Kyuubi ahead of schedule, and the big fox took one look at was going on before laughing for three days straight. During this time, Naruto was even more ebullient, and even took to pranking the villagers by running across the markets as between two and five tailed foxes, prolonging Kurama's laughter.


	13. multicross undead theory, libris mortis

On The Subject Of Vampires  
an encyclopedia on the pale blood-drinkers

Vampiric subtypes  
1\. hemomantic undead (way too many sources)  
\- soul-less / soul permeating the body (blood), too many and varied to count otherwise.  
2\. hemomantic fey (a good amount of sources)  
\- fey intrinsicly tied to blood magic.  
3\. blood-binding undead (original inspired by below)  
\- some smartass mage bypassing lichdom for immortality, has soul.  
4\. blood-binding corpse demon (Buffy the vampire slayer)  
\- see buffy wiki  
5\. divine miasmic soul-curse (The World Waits On Evil)  
\- read on spacebattles  
6\. acupuncture mojo / Kars' stone-mask (JOJO)  
\- awareness and control over all physical processes is not quite unconscious, vital energies strip control and the resulting panic causes damage.  
7\. conduit to cosmic ice / death (Noodlehammer HP fic)  
\- vampires as attuned to cosmic capital D Dark.  
8\. hemomantic soul gestalt-master (Hellsing)  
\- Sometimes spontaneous, imbibe the blood of the fallen. blood binds the soul, and the souls of those slain by the vampire.  
9\. in-/succubus kiss vestige (some d&d)  
\- a drabble of lore once mentioned mortals that survive a draining kiss, or are kissed with honest love, becoming vampires.  
10\. magical humanoid race with inherent hemomancy (the unorthodox truly living vampires)  
\- living vampires are strange, why need to consume blood, its voluminous per calorie, and magical races should be organic enough that they shouldn't be depended on it.  
11\. divine curse/blessing  
\- piss off a god see what you get  
12\. fey curse/blessing  
\- being sustained by naught but living blood sounds like a curse a proper old fae would put on an uppity mortal that dared make it bleed.  
13\. Eldritch Horrors  
\- Vampires somehow out of phase with the normal reality and twisted for it, or otherwise cosmic horror type.  
14\. misc.  
\- placeholder for more.

The big question in classifying vampires is often why; why they need to drink blood.  
Some need it to sustain the magic that binds them to the mortal realm for reasons or others.  
Some need derive sustenance from the magic and life force it contains, is indicative of, and is connected to.  
If it is a curse, a cthonic blessing, happenstance, or a quirk of nature.  
I personally suspect blood absorption was a placebo for JOJO vampires, enabling them to relax their conscious control over their bodies, permitting life force to resurface.

* * *

Vampiric traits and abilities.  
Frustratingly often poorly defined, grounded in lore, or not-in-the-least exclusive to specific subtypes: bringing joy, it is revealed that there is a whole slew of vampiric rituals and magics that grant various abilities and traits.

\- Mirror ritual (no reflection, silver vulnerability, mental defenses)  
The mage prepares a pure silver athame and mirror, maintains eye contact with reflection, then cuts his soul off from his reflection, and thus eyes as well. Eye contact no longer functions for anyone else attempting it for magic, and reflective surfaces no longer mirror the mage, though a simple cosmetic cantrip can create an artificial layer that will be reflected. The mage's soul however scars from the silver athame, leaving their body vulnerable to it beyond norm.

\- Boundary rituals (need invitation, damage reduction)  
Various methods. The mage essentially wards himself like a house, becoming highly difficult to damage. They then either simply cannot enter another house without permission of a proprietor, or risk surrendering all sovereignty to the owner should they do so.  
There exists a somewhat taboo method, where unsanctioned entry essentially declares war upon the owner and all their kin instead, them all becoming instantaneously aware of the transgression due to the magics involved.

\- Reverse flow ritual (running water vunerability, regeneration, spacetime effect)  
Various methods. The mage alters the flow of their blood so that it differs from natural flowing, like in rivers. The unnatural state gives great regeneration, but is susceptible to being corroded by natural flowing. Can include alterations to the mage's very existential wave, enabling them to flow past space with each step, or causing the flow of time to become unusual around them.  
There are less risky forms of regeneration, but they tend to be more costly to affix permanently.

\- Household binding rites (armies of familiars, animal shapeshifting, swarm form)  
Various methods to bind the spirits of beasts and vermin with hemomancy. Can include lesser spawn, but cannot do more than send a summons to fully sentient spawn. Often including the ability to assume the form of anything in the household, or even several at a time.

\- Feigned death ritual (mist form, revival, greater vulnerability penalties)  
Many vampires turn to dust from suppressed entropy catching up with them in death. In this grim ritual the mage meditates into a near comatose stupor, bringing them close enough to their own death to temporarily assume an entropic form, mist. The insubstantial form makes it possible to evade almost certain death, however, the closeness to death invites the same, and the vampire becomes far more susceptible to any of its vulnerabilities.  
Enough protections can alleviate this problem, but not remove it. Death is jealous of its property, after all.

\- Call of the void enchantment (ecstatic bite, bloodlust)  
A common enchantment upon a vampire. Invoking the call of the void and rearranging the pleasure signals makes being bitten better than sex to the victim. Many versions of the spell cause greater hunger for- and even lust for blood in the vampire.

\- Flight of the damned enchantment (flight, water boundaries)  
It is a fairly common belief in some cultures that the sinful are damned to travel the earth forever, denied both the pleasures of life and the rapture of heaven. These damned spirits would rarely traverse by foot though, and are more often seen in flight. Thus the mage temporarily binds their spirit to the earth, and as long as they have a relatively clear path to earth, stone, or plant life, they can float at any elevation above it. This does mean that anywhere where the earth is covered by something 'unnatural' or water, the mage cannot be for any length of time. Metal roads aren't seen often, but would be an effective countermeasure in this case.  
More advanced variants often have simple switches built in to deactivate the spell when necessary, but more lasting methods are easier in this case.

\- Bonds of blood enchantment (magical charm over eye-contact, -those bitten)  
Another common trait. Invoking kinship through the blood that has been fed on, or from an eye-contact based spiritual spell. The mage can confound the victim to regard them with familial trust and respect on levels of ancestor worship if desired. These particular spells were quickly developed into staying enchantments for convenience.

\- False Heart ritual (facade of life, vulnerable heart)  
Various methods to varying degrees. The mage weaves ritual magic on their heart, restarting it for a semblance of life that makes their true nature less obvious. In the most extreme cases, can actually make a vampire appear alive for all purposes, including sunlight.  
Sufficient protections on the spell matrix can prevent catastrophic failure even if the heart takes damage, but by then jig is up and it probably won't buy too much time.

\- Night stalker ritual (blending into darkness, no shadow, sunlight combustion)  
The mage severs their shadow from any and all lightsources, and binds it to their body. From then on they can blend into darkness as well as absence-of-light can, but direct sunlight will violently disintegrate their bodies. Make sure to cover up.

\- Blood right of nobility ritual (necromantic dominance, imposing will, excess pride, need to rule)  
A ritual to establish mental and spiritual dominance over undead creations adapted to a more hemomantic perspective. The mage performs a ritual where they establish their will against and upon a magical force conjured by the ritual. From therein they are able to rebuke undead with a glance and passing thought, find it trivial to both intimidate and seduce the living, but become susceptible to arrogance and find themselves desiring greater authority. It should be noted that the silver mirror ritual alleviates the consequences if performed beforehand.

~~~~footnote~~~~

Vampires that could otherwise bear offspring but are magically sterile could simply have sacrificed their gonads in a ritual repurposing or witch's pact.  
What exactly the otherworldly entities of such bargains do with their collections of reproductive organs is frankly unknown.  
As a reminder, Female witches with sacrificed gonads have the ability bestow life upon their conjurations and illusions, and male counterparts are able to bestow form upon their evocations and enchantments.

~~~~footnote~~~~

* * *

O

On The Subject Of Lichdom  
an encyclopedia on the undead mage

* * *

A. gaining undeath  
1\. potion of death  
2\. methods of ritual suicide  
3\. external help

B. phylactery  
1\. natural magic jar  
2\. enchanted magic jar  
3\. soul anchor  
4\. horcruxes  
5\. no phylactery

C. outliers  
1\. wish  
2\. wild magic miracle  
3\. salient create undead  
4\. living lich

* * *

A1  
A potion of death is any particularly powerful ingested poison, imbued with etherealness. The enchantment causes the poison to wash over all within the body without pause, thoroughly killing the imbiber near instantaneously. Drunken as the final act of a ritual, or with a prepared phylactery primed to accept the soul, the potion causes a swift and easy enough death that the soul remains fairly undisturbed by the otherwise abrupt change to undeath.  
Some sources instruct the potion itself be imbued with a create undead, but this is more of a typical diversion found in tomes detailing the dark arts; if you can't see through it, you don't deserve the prize. A create undead present in the potion is often a destabilizing factor, as the best case scenario is that the spell merely fizzles as it comes into contact with a still living body, activating before the poison has run its course. Otherwise the spell causes unnecessary strain on the subjects soul, significantly increasing the changes of failure. Be reminded that even a 9th valence spell alone isn't be enough to create a lich. Working a transvalent spell into a potion being wasteful not withstanding.  
In case of failure,with such a potion, the sum of the preparation can see the corpse give rise to a skeletal mage, an undead of bestial intelligence that possesses a short repertoire of spells from the list of those its source knew in life. Some books on undeath claim that skeletal mages 'regain' sentience first, before taking ranks as 'evolved undead', as per the established template, but reason would remind you that its 100 years in a negative energy saturated environment before that. And even then, the time difference makes it all but impossible to verify whether or not any claims of memories of prior life are true.

A2  
Methods of ritual suicide are a theoretical must to reach the desired state of undeath. This section details Rituals that can be performed without the aid of external forces, and don't involve the potion.  
\- massed sacrifice  
\- soul cremation  
\- necropolitan ritual modification  
\- ritual mummification  
\- fiend sacrifice  
\- negative energy saturation  
\- heart embalming  
For those of you with a pathological fear of death, adding a step where copious amounts of unicorn blood is imbibed will ensure uninterrupted consciousness.  
Massed sacrifice exploits the lingering traces of the law of death from the echoing death-rattles of sentient souls. The extent needed in non-sentient souls would be mathematically large in a short period of time, and restricted space.  
Soul cremation is a process where either the body alone, or the soul alone, is burned by ritual fire. The end result remains a charred skeleton, the soul having vacated its body under faulty circumstances.  
Fiend sacrifice makes use of the transmortal properties in all fiendish essence, demonic, diabolic, and otherwise. Most often the principles of evil in the essence deeply stain the soul of the prospective lich.  
Enough raw negative-polarity vital energy is capable of reversing the polarity of the soul, an event upon which a phylactery can snatch it from the body.  
Heart embalming is a more esoteric form of lichdom for certain. Depending on the process of extraction the lich can appear anywhere from skeletal to perfectly healthy. The Phylactery will however also be centered around a still beating heart.

A3  
By external help we mean the intervention of powerful outsiders, or entities otherwise greater than yourself. A Patron could be persuaded to safeguard the soul of a dedicated warlock in return for eternal service, some gods grant undeath to devout enough clergy as a means to ensure the survival of their faith, a powerful enough druid can commune an agreement for resurrection from a great nature spirit or collective, a demonologist can gain the secrets of lichdom from the occasional demon in the know, a diabolist can purchase a package for it for the "right" price, a sorcerer might gain lichdom as boon from the originator of their bloodline, etc. A unifying factor in all of these is that the non-magical weightlifting of the procedure tends to remain on the shoulders of the prospective lich.

~~~~footnote~~~~

C4  
As this resource will exclusively focus on lichdom, rather than methods that mages use to circumvent death in general; we will not cover this in depth, but it is possible to be considered a lich without physically being undead. Living liches are rare by the sheer sophistication required to shackle the soul without undeath. A long distance possession formation on the phylactery, or life-support enchantments on the bones, are generally a good bet for living liches.

~~~~footnote~~~~

B1  
A natural magic jar is the result of a continued sympathetic interaction between an object and its owner. An object of great personal significance can over time take on the property of a soul jar, similar to the result of the magic jar spell. Even without work being done towards lichdom, the object is generally able to act as a focus for resurrection as a bodypart would be. Once discovered, a natural magic jar is essentially a free phylactery. The suspicious convenience and questionable "cheapness" of a natural soul jar does come at the cost of it being far more difficult to enchant than the conventional phylactery, and that a burgeoning connection is much delayed if not outright cut off by preemptive enchantment. This flaw appears based on the symbolic shift from sentimental value to functional as a phylactery, which is as important a question as whether the soul would choose to remain in the object, or if it would need be chained there.

B2  
Enchanted magic jars are phylacteries built around the convenient magic jar spell by extensive, and expensive enchantments. This is the most common type of a phylactery, as with the proper instructions, or ingenuity, it can be created as soon as halfway to transvalency. The ease of construction however makes this type of phylacteries simple in enchantment, which makes their hold on the soul fairly weak, and the phylactery itself frail against curse-breakers. Even more, a common flaw in poorly made ones is the need to drain regular sacrifices into the phylactery to sustain its enchantments.

B3  
By soul anchors we mean phylacteries that do not involve the magic jar spell. As such, this section details many different ways of chaining, anchoring, suffusing, and so on having the soul inhabit an object rather than a body. The following is a short list of possible receptacles:  
\- scrolls filled with inscriptions  
\- autobiography book  
\- disembodied heart  
\- own preserved corpse  
\- ornate crown, mask, blade, orb, etc.  
\- life size self-portrait  
\- life size mirror  
\- obelisk with magic formations all over it  
\- chamber with magic formations all over it  
(placeholder)  
My favoured phylactery subtype is one loosely inspired by horcruxes, and based on quantum entanglement. Essentially one would prepare several different phylacteries, and bind their soul to all at once and each separately, simultaneously. The enchantment for this is mathematically perverse but the benefits are several independent phylacteries, as well as the body should it too be made use of.

B4  
Horcruxes, also known as Herpo's big mistake(s), or academically as soul shard anchors, are a poor attempt at a middle path to lichdom. While it is perfectly possible to create and utilize a horcrux with no ritual of undeath, the state of animation you assume has no bearing on the flaws. Horcruxes cause incurable madnesses that affect even undead, should the creator become one. The effect of a single horcrux on the mind could be missed if one is unfamiliar, but mental afflictions that invite harm or death are seen quite prominently. Arrogance, chronic tunnel vision, generally lowered ability to reason etc. Perhaps more importantly, horcruxes reduce and slow down the growth of ones magic itself. The effect is most prominent with the first one, and tapers down with each after that, but it is undeniable that anyone would have been stronger had they not fractured themselves.  
Should one regret the creation of a horcrux, they have a seven year grace period where genuine remorse for the act in the presence of the horcrux is enough to undo it and restore the soul to its original mass without hassle. A ritual to undo the horcrux and restore the soul remains feasible up to fourteen years after the creation, after which point its efficiency becomes unreasonable. Seven decades acts as a hardline after which the soul shard no longer has a sympathetic affinity to its creator, and attempts at restoration are for naught; absorbing the soul shard without safeguards and engaging in a direct clash of wills with it is the only alternative left outside transvalent methods.

~~~~footnote~~~~

Phylacteries based on the premise of horcruxes do exist, however, and are much more functional. Magic jar alterations where a specific piece breaks of the rest of the phylactery to be held with the body to "possess" and bolster it, or segmented ones where different pieces can be removed and hid elsewhere. Do take care to properly isolate all prospective fragments from eachother, or any single one being destroyed would cause a echo cascade that destroys all others.

~~~~footnote~~~~

B5  
For those without the patience or means to enchant a phylactery, there remains a choice. There is a lesser known, second type of lich, one where the soul is bound or suffused directly into the body, most often into the bones. These liches enjoy greater necromantic power and invulnerability, at the cost of actually dying if killed properly, and a lack of immunity to [turn undead], as the soul is present to be affected. A well considered method of reaching this stage is a ritually imbibing large quantities of unicorn blood, setting up an anchor for the soul in the skeleton, and then "becoming undead by whatever method you prefer". **(AN:** ""Paint the rest of the owl""**)** The continuity of consciousness will even serve to make lichdom more likely, as your souls attention never leaves the body.

* * *

C1  
Wish, the well considered greatest feat of mortal magic, is perfectly capable of turning someone undead, and creating a phylactery. Wishing yourself being a lich, would turn you into a lich of the second type, but that could be avoided by proper wording. Take note however, that becoming a lich in this manner could be undone by a sufficiently powerful dispelling, as it is technically an ongoing magical effect. "I Wish, that I became undead, by way of lichdom, with my phylactery being this (object you like)." Or "I Wish, that I became undead, by way of lichdom, without a separate phylactery, as my soul is bound to my skeleton." For example.

C2  
Spontaneously becoming a lich is a very real possibility for those that dabble with wild magic in addition to necromancy. This is most likely to occur when trying to use wild magic to catalyze the creation of undead greater than you could otherwise create. While we do not recommend attempts to wield powers greater than one´s own, large scale runic formations prepared and waiting for enchantment in the path of the magical surges generally do well in capturing wild magic for elaborate purposes. Take care to use durable enough materials, such as large slabs of unblemished granite, or the wild magic might very well simply sunder whatever attempts to harness itself.

C3  
Salient create undead, an ability of necromantic gods, archfiends, or other transvalent entities, can be used to turn someone into a lich, or simply form one from nothingness. While one might argue this should have been noted in external aid section, there is no known precedent of someone being turned into a lich so simply when asking for lichdom. Salient abilities, which require a divine rank, are extremely energy intensive. Regardless whether or not the entity has excess power, using more than a zealot would produce by their worship over their entire life, for an unowed desire of a mortal is unprecedented.

* * *

Strange quasilich  
d&d based

Components:  
-blood jorum  
-living spells (deathward, ethereal arming, amorphous form, ghostform, etc.)  
-potion forms of all living spells  
-ectoplasmic ichor  
-mohrg parts  
-oblex ooze  
-aberration parts

1\. The caster drains their blood with blood jorum. Blood Jorum, being its own spell, is susceptible to disruption from other magic directly affecting it. Thus-  
2\. Potion forms of desired spells are mixed into the blood, beginning with deathward potion, while the caster is under the effect of of a separate deathward. Living spell versions of the potions are mixed into the blood and merged with it. Ectoplasmic ichor is mixed into the concoction to provide physicality.  
3\. Flesh and organs are sloughed off the caster, merged with mohrg parts for undead compatibility, various aberrations for other benefits, placed under amorphous form and merged with a living spell of the same, then merged with an oblex that has only fed from the caster. (The caster is most likely under regeneration in order to stay alive and functional through all this.) Individual parts, such as skin, eyeballs, may be enchanted through some means, or merged with their own specific living spells prior to being combined into the "flesh ooze".  
4\. Flesh ooze is mixed into the blood jorum, and merged with its contents.  
5\. The caster makes final preparations for entering undeath, is either stripped down to the bone, or placed under the effects of spells that deal damage via targets blood, and tips the blood jorum over themselves, ending the spell and voluntarily failing the saving throw to resist dying from it, or being under a deathward to disrupt the conclusion of the spell while the damaging spells wound their body through their own blood concoction. the contents of the jorum should bond to the skeleton, or wear away and replace the flesh of the caster.

The caster becomes Undead (half-ooze, augmented aberration), with an appearance of a skeleton wrapped in tentacles of flesh, covered in a translucent membrane, and they are able to assume a perfect replica of their appearance were they still alive, and simultaneously disguise their actual state to magic while doing so.


	14. Multiverse Worldbuilding 3

Warhammer interpretations

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The warp

An immaterial, highly mutable plane of existence mostly composed of psychic energy. The warp follows the movements of the material world, without subscribing to its physical constraints. Being composed of psychic energy, all living beings have a warp presence. Less well known, is that all matter has a warp "shadow" as well, neatly explaining why the warp moves with the material world. Empty space is occupied by the astral seas of the warp, while all planets are connected to the various warp lands, space twisting and folding from higher dimensions much like how a mobius strip would affect a two dimensional existence, only multiplied as to fit three. In the warp, travel is always done through both time and space, and thus distance is meaningless, and due to the aforementioned distortion in space, so is direction; intent and will are needed to actually travel, otherwise any movement is "idle animation" of both avatar and terrain and nothing is achieved.

The warp shadow of an object is less how it looks and more what it does, planets for example _are_ the warp lands, only their spherical shape is not a function and thus absent. With enough skill, it would be possible to enter the warp and retrieve the warp shadow of a specific tool, bringing it back to material plane as a manifestation of psychic force, much like how daemons manifest without a true physical self in the material world. Such an manifestation would be a simple shape of idealistic function, a sword would be a rod with a crossguard and an infinitely sharp blade. A manifestation could be maintained so long as the object has actually ever existed at all. To actually affect the material to the idealistic degree would require tremendous amounts of psychic force however.

The machine spirit is an extension of this principle, as machines would also have a warp shadow. However even the most intentionally crude technology causes an over-defined warp shadow, that begins to exhibit traits of a cellular life form; extensive lists of catalyzed functions made very efficient. Computers, and indeed anything with any measure of information technology, has a warp shadow with emergent sentience, if often simple and dim. This is how warp drives and warp ships operate, the spacecraft itself intends to move through the warp, and the will of its simple sentience is catalyzed by the innumerable details of technology involved.  
The C'tan known as Mag'ladroth the Void Dragon wised up to the abundance of energy in machine shadows, and consumed them with much the same vigor as the C'tan tricked into consuming each other by the Laughing God Cegorah. As a consequence much of the glorious technology of the Imperium, that it no longer knows how to manufacture, is beholden to the Void Dragon, who demands a measure of worship to permit functionality, for its eventual reawakening. The essence of the Void Dragon could not be split by the Necrons, and thus they instead split its prison; the moon-sized structure needed to seal it away was splintered into innumerable merely gargantuan monoliths that were then scattered across the galaxy on vectors left uncalculated. The Cult Mechanicus is unwitting of this subtlety, and indeed their veneration of the Machine God is seeded into them by the Void Dragon.

Technological weapons, such as and especially powerweapons, are points of interest for the Ruinous Powers. Combining the purity of purpose of the simplest tools with finely catalyzed functions to augment it, the warp shadow of a powerweapon requires trivial amounts of focus to devastate even the most stalwart fortifications in its path. There is some form of beneficial quality to be gained from the junction of a physical object to its warp shadow, but such secrets are well guarded by the daemons, and left to speculation by mortal psykers. The most common hypothesis is that a physical frame, no matter how distorted by the warp, anchors the warp shadow and wards it against foreign influence. Where the warp shadow of a sword could be interfered with by simple directed intent and will, a corporeal warp sword is like any other physical object to such petty tricks.

* * *

Energomantic Ecology  
Inspired by warlock of the magus world

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

There can be confusion of exactly how various environmental functions of existence operate in realities where all energy and elements can be quantified as energy particles. If a type of energy exists at all, it likely can be found naturally ambient somewhere. Black mana seeps into planes from swamps, and red mana from mountains, for example.

Ambient energies are important to measure by both quantity and activity; -25 degrees Celsius is perfectly comfortable in still air, but -5 degrees with even slight wind positively freezing. In worlds without such strongly defined energies, heat is most often a measure of molecular scale vibration and cold is a false measurement stemming from a lack of heat. In the reality cluster of the Magus Worlds, Heat is instead calculated from relative quantities of ambient fire and frost particles and their activity levels. Summer would be when fire is abundant and active, frost lacking and dormant, and Autumn when fire recedes and decreases in activity while frost does the opposite, and vice versa for the Winter and Spring. Daily deviations in weather and temperature arise from small variables causing localized changes to either the quantity of a specific kind of energy and or its activity, and thus a summer day with barely lowered temperature can feel positively chilly as the activity of fire decreases more than quantity for whatever reason, and the cold touch of winter can linger well into spring if the activity of frost doesn't recede as its quantity does.

In the Magus Worlds, there are multiple planes where a specific element is predominant over the others, a prime example being the Lava Plane. The Lava Plane has an otherwise standard "prime material" ratio of elemental prevalence, except for fire being more than triple what it should on average. As stone and earth elements are abundant in prime materials to provide ground to live on, the Lava Plane has oceans of lava and great reservoirs of magma where water would usually be, as the temperatures caused by the quantities of fire displace much of the water on the plane into a gaseous state.  
With the abundance of fire energy it is natural that everything in the Lava Plane is inherently resistant to fire. Which can sometimes cause confusion as almost no other elements are wielded by the locals in their forms of magic. Why one would try to combat a lava worm with the discipline of Fire Plume is for the exact same reasons as one would bash at the skull of a bull with a bone club if otherwise unarmed. It might be more effective to wield an element the opponent is vulnerable to, but it is often more efficient to use the most abundant resources rather than try to get technical. The fire of an opposing warrior is still harmful even if you cannot burn; the energies oppose you and aim to disrupt your own even if you have no special vulnerability to them.

To remedy what could at best be considered a plothole, the weakening effect of the Dead Desert, we must simply consider the full implications of the new vector of activity. The ecology of the Dead Desert is deeply affected by the lingering ruin of a high rank battle having been fought there, leaving the area with the majority of its energy particles sinking to places unknown, and what being left much less than being more active to counteract being less. The area is almost as barren as a name such as the Dead Desert would deserve, but life yet thrives. Beings of powerful bloodlines, such as dragonewts (reptilians often known as kobolds), or vermin of inexhaustible will to live such as some species of rodents, thrive there to some equivalent of the word. Nevertheless the draconic bloodlines of the dragonewts will be forced into dormancy there, and every individual in a swarm of vermin will be even less than it should. Considering the apparent nature of the meditation techniques of the local magi, there is no validity to rest being less effective in the Dead Desert however. Magi cultivate their spirit and draw power not from their environment, but the uncolored mana of Unreality directly, as evidenced by the voidsky-like Astral Plane being immensely beneficial to their cultivation, yet highly dangerous with its vast energies. Thus the only manner in which the Dead desert could slow the restoration of a magus strength, is if it had an immensely obvious dimensional locking ward upon it to cut off the Astral Plane, which is in no way ever referenced. A more reasonable hazard would be that as the energetic body of a living thing cycles energy particles as if by breathing, the lower activity particles settle into them, and their own higher activity ones disperse into the desert beyond reach. This would overtime result in weakness and a sensation of fatigue, as the lower activity particles are less effective and clog the systems of the desert's inhabitants. In this manner even the magi would notice a seemingly inexplicable weakening of their proud strength, with inescapable feelings of fatigue, giving them ample reason to dub the area the Dead Desert.  
As it is, while the active principle of energy particles is apparent from the description of the setting, it is never directly mentioned in story.


	15. Fleshing out HPverse Worldbuilding 4

Harry Potter thoughts and interpretations

* * *

Kolmen Sielun Solmu. **Inspired by kklusmeier's Kolme Imeytyminen from fighting fire with fire.**

A Finnic ritual that made the Finnish mages of old so famous. The root of the muggle Finnic faith in three souls, Henki or Löyly the soul of the body, Itse or Vapaasielu the soul of the personality and all that defines someone, and Luonto or Ihmisenhaltija a supernatural entity acting as a 'guardian angel'. The ritual was most often performed as a coming of age ceremony for traditional Finnish mages, and only the two childhood spells meant to guarantee a child lived to teenage years would be active on the mage at the time. A now nameless body reinforcement spell cast on infants would ensure perpetual good health and fitness, and the spiritual familiar binding that is often taught as the first proper spell provides impressive versatility and protection from ill fortune. The third 'spell' in the traditional Finnish mage would actually be occlumency, as the discipline is nowadays known. Seemingly innate occlumentic defenses are why no true Finnish mage has ever been known to die on shamanic voyages.  
-Absorbs three "spell-form" magics into the very magic of the caster. Spell-form as in magics that can be cast without any measure of preparation, and aren't fully innate to the caster either.  
-Absorbed spells can from then on be cast at will, needing neither focus nor power to wield in their base state. Modified use and skillful displays can be trained with unfair ease. Modern spellcrafters often frown on the ritual as crude, in causing the mage's magic to fizzle upon casting anything else. Natives laugh at these foreigners however, as such fizzling would only ever be a problem to an untrained novice that can't even regulate the alignment of their magic.  
-The layered structure of the ritual means that the magics need to be in order of power, with the weakest first. The differing power is compensated for by greater attunement to the magic. A well-known example is a Finnish invoker (manaaja) employing the body reinforcement spell to the degree where mundane fire couldn't burn him without extended contact.  
-An unexplored side effect is that any attuned magic can be accessed while in animagus form, and will even influence the form if training for animagus after the ritual.

#Väinämöinen, the Finnish equivalent of Merlin, was said to have been born from Mother Nature herself, and having been born already elderly. Outside polite company, he was a bastard, having been left to a swamp to perish much as many unwanted children, and only re-entered society as a teenager. Having never had the childhood spell cast on him, and having never bound a spiritual familiar, Väinämöinen did not attune to those spells upon his coming of age. While the magics he attuned to are unknown, it is speculated that the first was an elementary compulsion to catch the attention of any that hear you speak, and the second a charm that grants anyone the proverbial silver tongue professional bards are known for; As such, Väinämöinen could chant like no-one's business, and capture even the attention of magic itself when spelling his incantations. Being well known to casually visit various locales for entertaining soirees on shamanic voyages, Väinämöinen's skill with Finnic occlumency was legendary enough to make it obvious the last magic was occlumency, as traditional.

* * *

Fiendfyre, the pinnacle of enchanted fire, sadly lacks an incantation. Fiendfyre is not only considered great dark magic, but also appears so, from the struggles of dominance between its burning manifestations and rampaging nature. Thus I consider _Fiendfyre_ to be an approximation of, the equivalent of, if not outright summoned **hellfire.**

"Malum Ignis Flamma Infernalis- FIENDFYRE**!**"  
"Az-reth."x6  
"Ignis / Flamma / Immolo / Incaendium - Maledictus / Malum / Infernalis / Diabolica."

Gray incantations, no longer fiendfyre, but also no longer true Dark magic.  
"Divinum Flammifera.", "Igneus Numen."  
"Flamma Inextinctus"  
"Verum Flamma Vis."  
"Morsfyr." thank you kklusmeier for this marvelous word of power. I might not consider it _fiendfyre,_ but magical fire sponsored by death itself is quite grand to have.  
"Werfyr" human-fire inspired by above, sounds quite like warp fire, doesn't it? as intended.  
"Geldfyr/Fyrgeld" money for fire, the tax of fire. _wergeld,_ couldn't help but come up with this after the above.

Light incantations, really not fiendfyre, light / white magic if it existed in the potterverse.  
"Igneus Patronum", "Flamma Praetor"  
"Flamma Vestalis", "Flammae Sol Invictus.", "Amaterasu."  
"Flammargenteo.", "Shaelalfida.", "Silma-úr" ~silver fire, the divine blessing of mystra is quite striking, silver fire is a must. I'll not apologize for the horrifyingly butchered arabic.

Fiendfyre is rightfully special, as one of the three canon compliant means to destroy the magic horcruxes, if not the soul shards themselves. By my own view of souls in magic, fiendyre will be able to consume physical magic, and magic cast on it itself. Being only encouraged by almost all extant flame retardant wards has given it a fearsome reputation, but specific magics that do little else but counter fiendfyre do exist, along with rarer arcana equaling it.

* * *

Sed of Ramesses. **Inspired and expanded upon from the work of Darth Marrs.**

-The Heb Sed of the God-King Ramesses of the land of the Nile, was a grand ceremonial ritual devised by the court mages and high priests of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. In it, the lives of a hundred adoring and pious servants or subjects or inferiors in general are sacrificed in premeditated disembowelment, so that their lifeblood could freely intermingle with the earth of an holy site, and the flayed body of the subject of their adoration and faith.  
-The ritual begins with a chant by all participants to venerate their sovereign, and the carving of their flesh in all limbs, the head, and torso; everywhere a bone is within immediate reach under the flesh. Afterwards, the sacrifices are bled out as quickly as possible, while at least one mage chants a sermon of worship and joining and binding, while the recipient of the ritual bathes in magically directed blood. Upon conclusion, the elevated mage, their body and magic, the sacrificed blood and life of the hundred, and the distinguished land upon which the ritual is performed are all made one.  
-In layman's terms, the recipient gains the vitality and stamina of all one hundred sacrifices, their body becomes a magical focus, all benefits to their body apply to their magic and vice versa, and they permanently add the _mana_ of the land they performed the ritual on to their magic. Mana as in the units of magic from Magic: the gathering; mana as in a unit power where a single unit of mana can deal 3 units of damage and 1 unit of damage can be enough to wipe out an entire nonmagical foot army. Depending on the universe of origin, this mana can either be added to the "natural" capacity of the mage's magical core, or simply made available in realities without magical cores. Nevertheless, the amount of power granted by the ritual beggars belief, and almost always does the recipient fail to restrict it enough to wield magical foci not created to channel such levels of magic without breaking.  
-The original ritual was not perfect, as would be obvious from the lack of an Egyptian magical empire. Originally, only the willpower of the recipient maintained the magic that kept them alive, and only the carefully cultivated ruler worship of the ancient Egypt made it possible to find even one sacrifice with enough adoration and faith to meet the requirements after so little as thirty years of rule. Nowadays, there are magics known invented both before and after the Sed that can be added to it without interaction with the properties the ritual affects. The Imperius curse functions by overwhelming the mind with a positive sensation, and then replacing it with what is essentially a command input module. This combination of idealistic obedience and positive feeling functions perfectly as needed for the ritual, and does not interfere with it.

* * *

Occlumency, **Thank you Wu Gang for your marvelously inspiring story: The Mind Arts**.

The catch all term for the passive or chiefly defensive among the mind arts, and the more exact word for the specific discipline of countering legilimency.  
In occlumency, strictly as its own discipline, the practitioner "clears their mind" in any way they prefer, and then uses their magic to project that state of non-thought outwards. The usual legilimency probe has two returns, a look into the mind of another, or a subtle fizzling that signals a truly mindless target, such as a wall. An occlumentic barrier is essentially a negative value to the zero of a mindless target, and as such the probe noticeably disintegrates after contacting it, often accompanied with the sensation of bouncing off of a rock. A legilimens can attempt to force the issue by employing more magic to bolster the probe, just as an occlumens can defend themselves by directing more magic to their barriers. As a fully mental magic, the backlash of a violent confrontation between the two magical arts can and often does leave both participants with extreme headaches to mild migraines.

Modern practitioners most often use occlumency as a term for a more complete set of meditation exercises comprising select choices from Texomency, Augeomency, and Occlumency. The fact that all three of these disciplines benefit immensely from the practice of the others has led to some debate on their division in the first place. In order, it is easier to compartmentalize memories and feelings with a clear head and focused mind, it is easier to augment a well structured mind that is without obstructions, and it is easier to clear a focused and orderly mind. The three disciplines weave together with such ease and completeness that the public misconception about occlumency including everything within their purview might as well be more correct than the academic semantics of their division left over from now forgotten authors. Perhaps it was one ploy among others for the aristocratic families to weaken the newbloods with.

-Mutomency, the mind magic of altering the manner in which magic interacts with your memories and thoughts. It is possible to translate your thoughts into any language of the spoken tongue rather than of meaning, or simply cipher them into gibberish through meaningless words and symbolic associations.  
_-Uromency, pelagomency, effluomency, molamency, etc. various more active varieties of mutomency, these not-so-vaguely elemental mind arts do not only make comprehending the mind and thoughts of their practitioner more difficult, they also significantly increase the strain and backlash of reading them on the legilimens' end.  
-Cavamency, a highly effective defensive magical art where the practitioner 'displaces' their mind from their body. Offenders of legilimency have commented it "dark and unsettling" to talk face to face with a man and yet feel no mind behind their eyes. Those rare few proficient with this art sneer at the fearful and remind them that mental privacy is a right written in law, even if offenses are often decriminalized.

The creation of an articulate mindscape is considered the pinnacle of all mind arts, and rightfully so. Involving exercises from all subsections of the passive mind arts, mindscapes are masterpieces of expanding the mind and altering the thoughts. Often taking the symbolic appearance of easily defensible keeps or landscapes, mindscaping combines mutomensic principles with texomency, in order to shape thought patterns into representations of physical existence. At their most basic, mindscapes work as defense by information overload, as a legilimency probe cannot properly process the sheer amounts of data in physical structures, and the legilimens either has to let go of the probe or almost fully extend their own mind into the targeted mindscape.

-Lethemency, the occlumensic art of the warlocks. A ""dark"" and massively illegal magic of the mind, lethemency somehow distances mind, magic, and soul from each other, until the practitioner can both create and freely shape a dummy mind over their brain, and equally freely alter or even remove any magical bindings over themselves. This meant that a practitioner lethemency could never be truly held to their word, as even the bindings of unbreakable vows are subject to their manipulation. The exact manner in which the lethemency operates has been struck out of all known writings, and independent research into anything resembling the art often comes with an indefinite stay in the isolation cells of Nurmengard-level prisons.

* * *

Animagus, metamorphmagus. **Noodlehammer's for love of magic, LeadVone's D.P.S.W.**

Animagi, the practitioners of animagus transformation, are the elusive mages that have acquired the ability to near instantaneously shift their body from their natural state to that of an animal. Most often, the animagus-form is restricted to a single, nonmagical animal, even if legends speak of magical animal forms. The often neglected truth in this case is that all animagus forms are magical, it is possible to maintain ones' faculties indefinitely and change back whenever after all. A mage in an animagus-form would not be any more restricted from employing focus-less magic than a mage outside of it, meaning that apparition for example would be perfectly possible. Granted that all the successful propaganda against magic to weaken the masses has made _wandless _magic considered a thing of legends, and the masses would not be able to associate with their animagus form enough to avoid splinching.

Methods to obtain the animagus ability are many and varied. From a simple meditation (cough occlumency cough) exercise to discover the inner animal to imbibing daily the psychedelic poison of a single mandrake leaf to reach a necessary state; and then simply giving the animal-self the go ahead to transform to a meticulous ritual ingestion of difficult potions over an extended period of time. In general there are quick ways, and slow ways.  
\- meditation variants  
\- mandrake leaf regimen  
\- revealing potion variants  
\+ learned transformation  
\+ instinctive transformation  
\+ transformaton potion variants  
Care should be taken to have redundancies and mix as many methods as possible, as after all there are no _specific _methods to obtain a magical animal, but magic begets magic so more can only help. Significant enough external magic used during any of the 'slow' methods has also been observed to affect the process, think extended potion use, constant magical performance, time turners... etc.

Animagus magic is closely aligned with living nature, and is thus organic in the manner to seek simplicity. Hence animagus forms are often known to carry some defining trait of their human state, whether an unusual eye or hair color or markings tracing an accessory, as leaving such impressions is simpler for magic than suppressing them. This nature is also fundamental to the transformation as well, as anything worn or small enough to be carried is known to vanish into the transformation and return upon reverting. Heavy magical research eventually proved that the animal form exists as an extraneous property of the soul, and the transformation causes it to switch places with the natural physical properties detailing the body, and anything that qualifies as worn by consequence. How exactly the transformation displaces matter not of the body appears numinous to present magical analysis. Any mass discrepancies between the mage and their animal forms can be waived as magic, or an existential effect as the soul tells reality its physical conduit is in fact that of the animal, and reality doesn't care enough to nitpick.

Metamorphmagus is a rare variant of the animagus branch of magic which had most likely spontaneously emerged as a bloodline. A metamorph's animagus state is the same as their original state, which creates a magical short circuit that enables focus-less motionless silent self transfiguration with the ease of an animagus transformation. A metamorph can perform fully cosmetic changes at will, such as lengthen hair or superficially elongate body parts or change the color of anything, but anything that deviates from the norm enough will require an appropriate level of understanding of what is changed. Making your nose the shape of a pig's is simple, giving yourself a pig's actual nose adapted to a human skull is not so simple. A metamorph is not necessarily limited by their physical composition or mass either, as engorgement charms create matter but are not considered conjurations, and thus a metamorph can autotransfigure extra-natural structures at leisure and engorge their biology to maintain livemass.

* * *

Champion and Death  
a wand of elder

**Leadvone D.P.S.W., steelbadger's The Shadow of Angmar, Noodlehammer's For Love of magic, NanashiSaito's Orders of Magnitude, others I might add later as I recall inspirations.**

Wandlore.  
A noble branch of magic to study, and not one nearly as complicated as any wandmaker would have us believe. The spells and potions and enchanting that go into a proper wand that turn it into an attunement based magical focus rather than just a magical focus are no doubt post-newt material, but we know that newts are actually somewhere before college in actual relative difficulty.  
Wandlore is not about how the wand is crafted nor about what specifically has been done to the perfectly nonmagical wood to give it magic. Wandlore is about the properties of the wood, the properties of the core, and how they interact. This has two levels of scrutiny, professional and vulgar. See the short poem-incantation serving as the section header, the first line is the vulgar.  
Wood + core  
Champion and Death  
Vulgar is the unwashed uneducated layman's understanding of wandlore, 1+1 is 2, decimals do not exist, the variables are taken at their lowest and presumed to remain there, the addition has no value of its own, etc.- the whole has to be the sum of its parts, a baffling belief for a culture of mages.  
Professional level to wandlore, disregarding specifics of construction, is really just understanding that the properties of the wood interact with the properties of the core, and understanding of either alone is unlikely to reveal much of the end result. What is more important is their interactions.  
Champion's Death  
Champion of Death  
conversely  
Death's Champion  
Death of Champion  
The actual meaning of any of these can seem a little obscure, but put like this, it's obvious there is more than one meaning for the choice of wood and core. Lets take a look at a less known combination perhaps, yew and augurey feather.  
Death and Destruction, much like most vulgar interpretations, this too is straightforward.  
Death's Destruction, tricky, but most fitting perhaps for a necromancer, someone to destroy death with immediate obvious results.  
Death of Destruction, tricky again, it is important to remember that death nourishes life just as life feeds death, perhaps a wand of a healer suited for regeneration.  
Destruction's Death, perhaps a necromancer, someone to end the state of destruction, or a healer like above.  
Destruction of Death, perhaps a necromancer, very much a healer, the aggressive implication would give credence to resurrection.  
A confounding combination to work with, but not out of place among wandlore. Ultimately a wand for necromantic healing, whether the living through medical magic, or the dead through "dark" magic.

Deathstick, Elder Wand.  
Elder is the wood of the champion. Most wands made of it demands that their wielders are the superior of their company, and are quick to attune themselves to another should their wielder be found lacking. Fitting that it is considered unlucky by the masses, when it is also known that anyone matched with it would have a grand destiny ahead of them. The dichotomy is easily explained by the choice between pursuing dreams of greatness or settling for mediocrity and companionship, only to forever be miserable. Salazar Slytherin, of cunning ambition, would have been pitied by all history books that considered him worth mentioning, had he not made the choice to become great. It is likely, had he deigned to visit a wandmaker rather than picking from his family's collection, that he would have been matched to a elder wand.  
Thestrals are creatures closely associated with death. Their macabre appearances and carnivorous diet, and a highly specific form of invisibility that would not immediately make sense. Animals, even most magical creatures, are simple enough to not understand the horror of death even unconsciously. To not comprehend enough to fear the passing and disappearance of a soul. All sapient beings that have witnessed death are able to see thestrals perfectly fine, but not even the oldest predator still active would have the comprehension to see past the magic that cloaks them.  
This is why the much renowned Deathstick is so phenomenal even in canon, its core represents the physical reality of death, and is thus uniquely suited to disrespecting even magical entropy. Combined with elder wood... well, a disentropic core in a wand that only accepts the very best? You can see how it would build a mythos around itself. It is likely, that had we seen other thestral hair wands, we would have eventually stumbled into someone reparo-ing something they by rights shouldn't have been able to, just because no one told them it was impossible. Confidence is a central pillar in magical power after all. On to the more complex details regarding Deathstick, wood and core interaction. As impressed by its bloody history, it is clear no one weak ever held on to the wand for long.  
In this case, the bar was set quite high indeed, as the highly magical thestral hair core would not truly attune to any that had not seen / witnessed / _faced _death. Elder demands a record unmarred by humbling defeat, thestral demands understanding of death; Deathstick demands the master of death, or at least someone who has looked death in the eye and can honestly say they don't care, death itself is not corporeal enough for the Deathstick's tastes after all.

This wandlore based explanation of power best fits worlds where all mages theoretically have equally powerful magic, and magical cores are just propaganda. Without magical cores one has to justify the discrepancy between Dumbledore's power despite senility, and the majority's weakness despite very many things. The details can be made numinous, and proper paths to power be pushed above the balance rating of HPverse and thus beyond the reach of necessity. Wands of course remain something that shouldn't be given to prepubescent children, and thus their misuse by the 99.99% can be excused. Careful here though, because not providing even the implication of something special about the Deathstick implies that any wand could ultimately equal it in sufficiently skilled hands.

Deeper lore

Wandlore.  
Personally I like to think that wands are supposed to be somewhat impossible, and the less so they are, the less powerful they are. A wand core is a magical material, and thus nominally impossible, but if the wand is an actual hollow-bored tube, that would have to be one hell of a strong core. If the wand is split and the halves carved before being rejoined with magical glue, the core can be slightly more modest, if the wood is treated with potions and what not, all the better. If the core is placed into a groove prepared by a temporary vanishing solution and then let be superimposed with the wood... it's unlikely you'll ever find a core weak enough to leave that an unremarkable wand. Active spellwork would of course leave a massively faulty property of impermanence on the wand, all but ruining it, but that could be dodged by using spells that don't technically effect any changes to the materials, such as spatial displacement charms. The more nonspell magic goes to the construction, and the more improbable the wand's existence ultimately becomes, the better.  
Are magical creatures equally magical? Is a single strand of tail hair from an unicorn the equal of a feather from a phoenix? What about dragon heartstrings and thestral tail hairs? Questions to ask and answer as needed, perhaps to provide flavour and trivia if nothing else. Phoenix feathers and their ilk in practical properties are easy to squander in comparison, as the explosive immediacy of their magic can fool amateur wandmakers to think the wand is more powerful than the others, when it is actually quite much weaker in reality. The precision of unicorn hair would make the wands somewhat modest in measurements of raw power, dragon heartstrings would perform adequately in most things and exceptionally in endurance, and phoenix feather would shame its competitors in raw power while revealing its mediocre actual strength in anything even slightly lasting. Thus the narrative of weaving multiple hairs into a braid to strengthen unicorn cores and stacking multiple strings in dragon, not to mention to the rest. Ollivander's acclaim is most likely from specializing and eventually learning how to best compound unicorn hairs and dragon heartstrings into more remarkable wands. A large magical number-ed strand braid of thestral hairs would certainly explain the imposing size of the Deathstick.

Multicore conduit.  
A very basic upgrade in theory, following the thought of combining multiple hairs into a single braid, but not so in simple in practice. While upgrading a single core is simple enough, adding more isn't quite so easy, and that is what having multiple cores means. Considering the differing properties of individual strands even if from the same creature much less another species, accounting for the specific phase of each core much less specific frequency, if these exist at all to be considered. This can certainly seem a daunting task, but much like three-phase power is great convenience and arguably more powerful than single-phase AC, so too would multiple cores laid in warp be more powerful than a single one. Even if of the same species, three independent yet synchronized thestral hairs would be more powerful than a single one, or even one of the more modest braids, but then you could have three independent braids like before, etc.

Imbued conduit.  
The Deathstick could simply be powered by sacrifice, and thus lead its wielders to also sacrifice. It is unlikely it actually need sacrifices to sustain its might, but if that was the origin of its power then blood calls for blood and all that. If Antioch Peverell was brilliant enough, he could very well have managed to imbue the wand with enough Dark that the thestral hair core's allotted piece of death's own power would seep into the wand, most likely through a convoluted sacrifice of the same thestral to give the hair. This would give the wand a background need to cause death for death's own sake, while providing a tremendous boost to the finality of anything performed with the wand. Repairing blatantly disrespects entropy, conjurations are actually permanent rather than exceptionally long lasting and subtly sustainable, offensive magic wildly more powerful and actively seeking to kill the opponent.  
Perhaps the eldest Peverell enchanted and wove a small sentience into the wand, to subtly guide its wielders to be more efficient with their magic, while also harvesting all excess magic and compounding it into the spells casted. This kind of enchantment would likely grow increasingly organic over time, until it gains actual personality from the wand wood and core, in this case demanding perfection and having an obscure sense of fatalism.  
Perhaps it was something else entirely, a brilliant stroke of mad genius of the mortal creator, a bafflingly impossible miracle of actual intervention? Who knows, all that is certain is that there is something very unusual about that wand.

* * *

misc. paraphernalia

Birdshot portkey  
A dubiously legal variant of a portkey, the birdshot portkey consists of an arbitrary number of other portkeys of diminutive size spelled together. When primed it can hold up to 13 viable portkey destinations, and up to 6 dozen false portkey trails, with the caveat that each viable location also causes a smaller scale repetition after a couple seconds. Infamously paired with an independent international portkey, the birdshot creates a chaotic web of portkey trails and the passengers hop off where it suits them, walk or jog a couple city blocks worth, and activates their proper portkeys for their actual destinations. Properly deployed, a birdshot portkey perfectly covers any getaway, as it can take days for pursuers to untangle the initial burst, and that compounds with every additional destination. In a perfect case scenario, it would take a month for a pursuer to map the right magical trail, which would of course by then have long since degraded into nothing.  
While not strictly illegal on its own, birdshot portkeys tend to invariably fry any equipment that tracks portkey travel if activated within range, making them illegal to use within high-profile areas like the Ministry of Magic for example. Otherwise, they are considered suspicious enough that law-enforcement officers are legally entitled to investigate any persons they are informed of being in the possession of or practice of making them.


	16. oneshot 8, HPverse

hwllo

* * *

*knock* *knock*

"Do come in!" the professor announces.

"Good evening, Professor." Harry says as he steps into the office, closing the door behind him.

"Ah, Mr Potter, pleasant to see you make good on my offer to speak whenever about anything." The professor puts away indistinct stacks of parchments. "May I offer you some tea, refreshments perhaps?" A wave of his hand causes all the paperwork to disappear via sinking into the desk.

"No thank you, Professor." Harry says plainly, taking a seat.

"Very well then, what did you wish to discuss?"

"I noticed something last year..." Harry begins, obviously uncertain of himself.

"Go on." the professor interrupts reassuringly.

"Well, Professor Lupin mentioned how even most aurors had difficulty using the patronus charm, and well, only at the end of the year did I notice I had very often also heard my housemates complain about magical exhaustion, you know, headaches and soreness and things like that?" He continues, seemingly attempting to downplay something. "And I realized I had almost never actually felt any of that myself, and I was wondering why that was?"

"Ah,... A very astute topic to start with." the professor comments with a hand on chin, eyes somewhat absent. "And I do wish our future discussions remain as insightful, but to answer it; do you have a crevice of sorts at the back of your head?"

Starting slightly, Harry's hand darts to rub the border between his parietal and occipital bones at the back of his head. "No-, why do you ask?"

"On a completely unrelated note, the headmaster knows everything that happens in all of Privet Drive." the professor states in monotone, a deep frown his face. "And I despise his choices made to deal with most of it." Eyes filled with carefully leashed anger bore into Harry's own. "So I would ask again, did that frying pan leave any invisible reminders for you?" Spoken with a placating tone mustered through his current fairly obvious emotional state.

Harry assumes an impressively guilty look on his face and casts his eyes downwards. "Yes."

"And there's your answer, then." the professor leans forward, much less restrained, but still monotone. "I would postulate that by permitting expansion and compression with less changes in overall pressure, the crack in your skull is negating the vast majority of observable symptoms of magic use from you." A hand travels up to his chin again. "Magic use doesn't actually cause tiredness, nor can magic be exhausted, but it does inadvertently place negligible but cumulative strain on the central nervous system. You see, magic has to touch the brain in order to find out what you want to happen. There is of course the psychic pressure of the individual to soften it, like when you say or imagine saying 'up' to activate a flying broom, but that is a lesser variable in day to day magic." Harry looks up at the mention of brooms. "Essentially, the brain excites its magical field until reality thins, magic enters the world through the brain, and interacts with it to find out how it should pay its toll for passage."

"Um, but where does magical exhaustion then happen?" Harry takes the opportunity to ask on a pause in the professors speech.

"Ah, right. Magical exhaustion happens from the brain being distressed by excess magic interacting with it in a given window of time. The magical field superficially resembles an electromagnetic field, and can thus affect the brain tissue, mostly by causing pressure variations. Now, that is much more serious than it sounds, and the brain always, immediately uses its own magical field to relocate these pressure variables to the rest of the body, mostly the scalp and face for headaches, but sometimes even the muscles and organs for soreness and nausea."

"Wait, so because I have a... my brain doesn't need to relocate pressure, and I'm immune to magical exhaustion?"

"Almost, Mr Potter, but not quite. The pressure variables are most common cause for the symptoms, but the brain is also chemically taxed by its efforts, so a measure of hunger is also to be expected regardless." The professor glances eye-contact before looking back into undefined space. "Something I feel no-one will ever notice here in Hogwarts."

"Huh. Thank you for the conversation, professor." Harry moves to stand up.

"It was of no concern, Mr Potter." The professor assures while assuming better posture again. "Good evening and do show yourself out at your own convenience."

"Good evening, Professor."

* * *

"You wouldn't believe the delusional shite Malfoy's been spouting to anyone that listens! I get the feeling he's trying to impress the Durmstang quests, but really that can't be the way to go about it!"

"Should I take that as you wanting to discuss blood purity, Mr Potter?"

"Oh god, please don't tell me you actually buy into that too, Professor."

"I don't buy into anything, Mr Potter, I study and research." The professor scoffs. "Remember what I told you about magic and the brain?"

"Uh huh?"

"Well magic doesn't do anything to stop evolution. Purebloods are fully adapted mages, halfbloods a three quarters, and mundaneborns halfway adapted mages. Only, here adaptation really isn't a good thing." The professor clears his throat. "Brain-mass can be correlated with raw magical power, you see, so the purebloods eventually grow marginally bigger brains. However, due to the fact that in the magical world, any problem you have can be solved with a carefree swish of a stick, pureblood brains have a noticeably reduced surface-area, because they have little need for critical thinking, and surface-area indicates intelligence. In addition, however, the brains surface-area determines how quickly magic can flow through the brain, which is a much better indicator of effective magical power."

"Professor, please explain?"

"Right. Purebloods have more brains, but live simply, and thus their brains have become simple, overriding the benefits of their larger brain-mass. The mundaneborn have brains fresh from the harsh mundane world, yes even with civilization, so the sheer surface-area they have easily sets them above an average pureblood in terms of power. And halfbloods have a sweetspot where they get both mass and area, easily dwarfing both others in terms of power when it comes down to it. On the other hand, mundaneborns tend to have conditioned limits to what they can accept magic can do, or how it does things, limiting their potential; while halfbloods almost always inherit what I call the philosophical zombie gene, which, if not corrected in upbringing, Will drop their intelligence down to the average pureblood; and the excess brain-mass of the purebloods is by no means unthinking, much rather filled with nonsensical whimsy that is the entire reason people think miscasting can occur. No, mispronouncing that word will not conjure a peacock when the spell is meant to wash away color, you were just thinking about peacocks way harder anything else, and if your intent and words and gestures do not match the intent matters the most by a massive degree. And on the third hand, purebloods often have legal privileges, while mundaneborns have the proper mindset of absolute wonder to approach magic with, and halfbloods can go for either."

"Ummm."

"Don't flip out on me, these sorts of things must be explained with the exaggerations or they don't latch. The effective differences I mentioned are actually much less than implied, but somewhat more than most think. Especially pureblood privilege, it's out of proportion to the point of not being funny." *cough* "But I digress, the purebloods fear the mundaneborns, for both power and foreign behavior, so they make privileged laws and adopt hateful philosophies to shield their petty egos and fragile worldviews. I would dare you to calmly explain to Malfoy, for example, that they have the notion of bloodpurity and supremacy almost entirely opposite to how things are, but I don't want you to get hexed. Mind that Malfoy doesn't seem smart enough to know how to cast curses."

Both laugh at the joke.

"Especially with wands though, Mr Potter, wands are an equalizer."

"How so?"

"Without wands, only the purebloods would be known for immediate feats of wandless magic, most halfbloods would stay with one of other groups, and mundaneborns would be known for ruinously powerful ritual magic. The difference of being able to impose your will on the world right now, and being able to inscribe your will deeply into the world with even a little time, and learning to do one or other. Wands take all of hassle out of magic."

"You rarely ever use your wand, Professor?"

The professor gives a knowing smile. "That is something else entirely, that I will keep close to the vest."

* * *

"What about wands, Professor?"

"Magical foci in general, Mr Potter. The wand is just an inanimate stick with no sensitive parts to suffer under literal pressure. The magic in it attaches to your own magical field, and then draws on and focuses your psychic pressure. It's the difference between shouting on your own, and whispering into a microphone with the speakers set on maximum volume."

"What about, motions, incantations, why do they need to be matched, and why can't squibs use them?"

"In order, it's the magical language of the wands and incantations notarize the dialect and tone of the former. Then there is simply compatibility, the wand is a microphone, but it's not a perfect one, and can distort your voice if poorly picked. And finally, squibs own magical field is fully, strictly internal. For a mage, the field emanates about 2.5 feet from your body, being at its strongest right at the skin, giving much for the wand to latch on to. A squib however, has the inverse, the magical field is strongest in their bone-marrow and organs, with only nominal emanations exiting the skin, too little for a wand. Blood binding does work, of course, but that's-" and here the professor gestures bunny ears, ""dark and massively illegal and squibs can't use wands anyway so why even try?" Bigots the lot of them, it works fine, grants them access to wands and only needs to be renewed every new and full moon."

"Wait, so squibs CAN do magic? Why would anyone claim otherwise?"

"Idiocy and fear, Mr Potter, idiocy and fear. Blood has powerful magic, and the masses can't have power." A deep, wholehearted sigh. "And that applies to those who would otherwise be fully deprived as well, because of some perceived precedent, I think." A renewing breath. "Squibs can mix potions though, and carve runes the traditional way, that is, they can do anything that doesn't require a wand; if they haven't bound one. The problem is that blood-magic is illegal, and no legal magical school accepts students who can't use a wand, so squibs wouldn't be permitted to renew the binding even if they could be admitted."

"O-kay. Damn, that's backwards."

"On the other hand, there is the fact that squibs can do a lot of their own kind of magic. Empowering the senses, reinforcing the muscles, promoting muscle growth, that sort of thing."

"Say wot now?"

"Squibs are magical too, stands to reason they have magic. I think the actual laws oppressing them came to be from a squib athlete seducing all the women his mage brother tried to get in bed, not too difficult if you're in much better shape and can demonstrate you have much more stamina, I would think."

"Errr-" Harry looks as if he were to start blushing at any moment. "Right. Forgetting that, could you teach me that sort of magic?"

"Seduction or the other kind?" Harry goes red like a Weasley's hair, and the professor barks a short bout of laughter. "Of course I can, but take note that it won't be easy or pleasant. Inviting the magical field inside the body involves some most strenuous exercise."

"I can do it." harry is quick to assure.


	17. Worlds 5, big mystery

Mage: The Awakening

repeat after me: disbelief doesn't matter

In the world of Mage:., the abyss is a worrying enigma. Distorting magic and causing mathematically unpredictable complications, the abyss oppresses any and all wielders of magic who dare presume to alter the world beyond their station.  
But what **is**, it?

The abyss is:  
"The most terrifying realm of all, the Abyss is an entity as much as a place. It is a vast and infinite void populated by beings beyond the edges of creation, creatures beyond your darkest nightmares, strange aeons that live but were never alive, dead but never died, anti-reality incarnate. A hideous and infected wound of unreality. The Abyss was created with the Fall of Atlantis and the destruction of the Supernal Ladder. While the Abyss and its Intruders save most of their ire for the Awakened and Supernal Magic, it hates all that exists, and in its twisted vision sees everything in the world as being inherently WRONG. It seeks only the corruption and entropy of all matter and life in the universe. Not all believe that the Abyss was created by man's hubris but was let in from outside of existence." - _The Techgnostic Psychonaut 27.12.2015_  
This is a very interesting view, it paints the abyss as inherently self-contradicting and paradoxical, but more specifically, an inherently malevolent strictly external force still created within the universe. Or perhaps...

The abyss is the worlds last boundary to unreality. The young gods of Atlantis, known as the Exarchs, constructed the Supernal Ladder to ascend even further, and after their success, The Ladder fell back into and through the world. Tearing past the many veils of existence to the very last, which the ladder passed through and became unmade. The abyss is a null variable, zero, positive and negative and imaginary infinity, 1 and -1, a positive and negative imaginary unit; all at once and even more. The abyss is a single infinitely small point that exists, representing the fact the universe does, and nothing else. It is incomprehensible if perceived because it cannot actually be observed, and this causes it's nightmarish properties.

"A young god was helping their fellows with the designing and construction of their means to further enlightenment. He made a mistake. Knew he would make one an entire second beforehand. As did everyone else. He still made that mistake, because not one among them could foresee its consequences. After the mistake, all knew the young god had broken the world. All knew fear again, the world had been broken. All their experimentation, all their stretching the physical and magical constants beyond their limits, and this, this, had finally broken the unbreaking world."  
They peered upon the first pond abyss, and their greatest, worst nightmares peered back; magnified infinite times every single instant by the increasing amounts of fear directed at it.  
"There was no more time to be careful and avoid meaningful mistakes. The gods, young and old, made with all haste, and the Supernal Ladder was completed, and had been scaled. Their urgency shook the entire universe, great quakes and waves felling nearly all magical beings left in their wake. And from on top of their creation, they looked back. The abyss was reaching for them, for their creation, as they'd feared. But even worse, it had grown, as not one of them had dared to even consider the very notion of the possibility of. And in their indescribable panic, the Atlantean gods cast their creation, made frail by their haste, upon the dread monstrosity they looked upon, and turned their, backs to the world, never to behold its beauty again."  
The quaking of their haste had deteriorated the foundations of the world, harmlessly if only not for the presence of the abyss, which would expand to compensate for the otherwise meaninglessly short period of frailty. The cascading ruins the Supernal Ladder struck at the apparition, and passed through it into nonexistence. Yet the Exarchs had neglected to ensure their creation would strike at nothing but the source of their fear, and the many fragments of it tore the world open beneath it, expanding the abyss, into what would in time become known as the Ocean Ouroboros. The world's fundament would restore itself over all lesser windows to beneath itself before then, but the Ocean Ouroboros "healed" too slowly to disappear before it could be observed again, which would then stall the progress to a standstill.

The eldest and strongest emotion is fear; and the eldest and strongest fear is that of the unknown. Witnessing something that was never meant to be directly observable in any measure agitates that fear, and magic bridges the nightmarish visions imagined to the observed party, that being a literally zero dimensional fundament declares its own existence, implicating magic to conjure an undefinable nightmare out of mathematical impossibilities projected through feverish visions of fear. And it does this by virtue of the exposed fundament being that which declares existence, thus it does, and no energy is needed to that end for it always has. The fundamental field of magic fluctuates with the subliminal fearful echoes of all that have gazed upon the the abyss with cowardly eyes, tainting its use for any purpose but impossibly true evil.

repeat after me: disbelief doesn't matter

Plothook for multicrossover  
The Exarchs leaving was just barely preceded by another mage rising to their rank, and being left behind. This mage would then, after the disaster, discover the abyss rifts, preventing them from "healing". Driven to madness by the loss of all their fellows, and the overabundant presence of the abyss, the mage would then attempt _to disbelieve _the entire course of events, ultimately failing, sinking all of the supernal realms and the entirety of the magical fallen world to the abyss, as the god-like mage destabilizes the very foundations of the universe. The abyss comes into contact with physical matter, and the restoration is then stalled by the "unthinking hum" of its spirits.  
Mana yet flows into world, as is unalterable, but only to immediately sink into the abyss; and thus is the world forever lost to magic as it knows it.


	18. Worlds 6, un-asked-for explanations

Quantum bulls**tery

creative articles of the pseudoscientific kind

Dungeons and Dragons

Q: How do we reconcile the ever growing hit points of high level characters with the laws of physics in a narrative world?  
A: The size of hit dice represents physical toughness, durability, and the level, number of HD, represent an expanding quantum superimposition state. Essentially the wave functions of individual molecules expand to harmlessly cover other molecules of body, wave functions of cells expand to cover other cells etc., by an obscure parametric factor dependent on level, and thus the force of attacks is reduced as if divided over larger areas of the body than they are. The Factor can appear exponential in individuals of sufficiently large HD.  
This also causes the automatic growth of ability scores, as e.g. muscles becoming increasingly idealized improves performance.  
Of course, this alone is not sufficient to explain the whole scope of it, as it would imply the world would be probabilistic if it was, but fear not. This wave function irregularity is caused by the soul tethering itself better to the body, which makes the subject increasingly supernatural. This makes it easier _and_ more likely for offending attacks to quantum tunnel through you (technically you quantum tunnel through the attack on the time axis but-), while also making it more likely for any wounds gained to spontaneously close without a trace as the particles surrounding them are told to reverse direction by the soul until they are back where they were before the wound happened.

Q: How can monks just whale on, for example, bedrock walls, without hurting themselves?  
A: Pilot waves, quantum entanglement, and quantum scale spatial displacement of particles. Monk martial arts dice grow even if you contrive to keep ALL your ability scores at -3 modifier, so it's not really about strength, skill, or even luck. Monks learn some fancy tricks to either displace the wave functions of their striking surface areas outside their body, or displace the particles of those wave functions further into their body. The absence of particles on their own end means that the waves of the monk's fists interfere with the wave of the target, affecting their particles and thus structure, causing damage; but the opposing force vector of the target surface disappears into the void. While the waves do mutually interfere, the monk's particles simply aren't there to be affected by it.  
Assuming limitless growth, a monk could eventually reach the level where they can affect things wholly without physical interaction happening, causing infinite amounts of unavoidable, true damage whenever they feel like it; as if their hands were each a DM spontaneously deciding to change the world.

Dark Souls  
By the by, the above is also how Dark Souls leveling works. Souls have a quantized energy level, and channeling them through yourself permits you to improve your own "stats". Important when you count as dead and can't improve organically.

Star Wars  
Darth Marrs Broken chains ch18 for diatium, look it up.

Lightsabers, are a technological (artifice) reflection of the Rakatan Forcesabers, developed over roughly ten thousand years, first by the Je'daii, and then improved by the sith. The lightsaber employs Force resonance within an attuned crystal to turn electrical energy into Force (magical) energy. The blade cuts better than most think, and is strange to wield due to being massless, so any certainty of safety requires having the Force to assist the wielder.  
\- Laser emitters and mirrors to generate a single beam composed of multiple signals with almost opposite waves, just right so they fully destructively interfere with each other after a specific distance. Pros, cannot be blocked; cons, cannot block, ludicrous energy demands. Could perhaps likely-not but still, redirect pulsed particle radiation weapons to the direction of the emitter, but a bad idea overall. Small scale laser scalpels might work though.  
\- Hyperstrong 3D directed magnetic field. Break the laws of physics à la black holes, perhaps some sort of electromagnetic resonance trick, to create a nearly physical "magnetic-field-line" shaped like a hollow cylinder. Apply electrical field to ionize air, creating magnetic plasma that is then trapped in the rough shape of the weapon. Room temperature (and up) superconductor disc displaces the magnetic field so it doesn't melt the component sustaining it. Resonant property doesn't do jack to trap the heat into the blade, but they are obnoxiously loud in both ultra- and infrasound frequencies, which luckily effectively keeps a small vacuum around it so it doesn't unduly superheat the air by contact. Super bright though, like don't look directly I will melt your retinas bright. Quantum trickery to displace luminosity into infralight frequencies, essentially turns it into heat radiation, so either fuck your vision, or fuck your skin. Of course, some universes have different spatial constants, so the raw magnetic field of the lightsaber could actually, feasibly, curve space enough that most of the light disappears into the void, and makes the weapon "just" bright.  
\- A much weaker magnetic field, as above, but with a complimentary canister of a ̶m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ substance that produces (strongly) diamagnetic plasma to fill it. Both these require magnetic fields having quantifiable peaks, almost as if ripples on a surface projected to 3D-space. Or ferromagnetic plasma clinging on to a magnetic field core, the plasma would be thick enough to interact with other lightsabers' plasma while the cores reach a point where pushing them any closer to each other would require industrial levels of force.  
\- A plasma containment, much like above, but with an additional reaction producing repulsor particles externalized. Star Wars blasters already deliver enough kinetic energy to partially melt flesh, and this lightsaber would be a beefed up version of that. Produces sound because of funky interaction with air, liquids would interfere with the reaction, and being based on kinetic energy would permit clashing the blades like physical weapons.

Laser, blaster, turbolaser  
\- Perhaps the blaster gas is a battery-like component as well. The energizer turns it into plasma to enable a mysterious ̶m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ reaction, and the actuator strips the elemental particles that form the beam from the plasma before accelerating them, with a specifically shaped but otherwise mundane crystal acting as a focusing lens, with the particles passing through it because they're actual radiation. These particles would very likely be indistinguishable from the ""muon""-beam repulsors from Iron Man.  
\- The stun setting uses a secondary emitter, that separates the plasma into two ionized components, and spreads it into a circular shape. The altered nozzle velocity seeks to enlarge the circle, and the opposite electrical charges seek to reduce it, resulting in a wide approximately bicone shaped impulse. If using the repulsor variant, the stun emitter module would emit small quantities of the actual plasma in order to transmit the electrical charge.  
\- Possibly, not likely, Star Wars universe has a metastable energy level on the electromagnetic field, one above that of our universe's photons. Which would permit the existence of "slow-laser" technology, as the heavy-photons would contain more energy just existing, and would thus have a slower velocity? especially through gases. A lot of iffy details here though...  
\- "Prismatic Crystal", is not actually prism as we would call it. Rather the natives of the star wars universe think it is like that, because it becomes covered in chromatic aberration when exposed to light. Permeable to plasma quite like as if it were light, the crystal causes a slight shift in the physical phase of the passing substance, causing it to behave more like a wave, passing through air with little resistance. Blasters incorporate these crystals to remove the energy loss from the beams passing through air would otherwise cause, increasing effective range. Disbelieving of the Force, and magic with it, the manufacturers think this is accomplished by somehow focusing the beam. Which was given credence to by the beams that used the crystal maintaining cohesion throughout impact better, rather than dispersing and flattening more at the first sign of physical resistance.

Material Sciences  
\- Cortosis doesn't reflect a lightsabers energy back into itself and short circuit. Such reflection would cause the lightsaber to explode, as it would resemble the effects of emitter matrix inversion at full power, which described "- if it was left on, the faulty weapon would violently explode, potentially killing those in close proximity". Cortosis is described as a excellent transmitter, good enough to spread fire from blaster beams into such a large area as to make it insignificant. From this we could infer, that cortosis actually steals energy from the lightsaber, and the loss of blade cohesion causes whatever ̶v̶o̶o̶d̶o̶o̶ safety the emitter has to give a false positive and cut the power.  
\- Beskar, or Mandalorian Iron, is a hyperexotic variant of any commonplace iron isotope. Resulting exclusively from the collapse of a neutron star, beskar is iron that has had its inner orbital electrons magnetized by exposure to ludicrous amounts of sheer electromagnetic force. Due to the magnetic properties already natural to iron, beskar has an altered atomic configuration that largely neutralizes its immense aberrant magnetism. This structure consequentially harnesses the magnetic fields to the improvement of the metals material qualities. Beskar cannot be synthesized without magnetar level magnetic fields, which makes it essentially impossible to synthesize. Trying to forge it is a frustrating exercise in futility, as without the secret techniques of the Mandalorian smiths it tends to spontaneously shatter after being cooled down.

Shielding tech  
\- Magnetic Shielding. A relatively small component added to the outer surface of a suitable hull, or a thin coating of suitable material. Utilizing the electromagnetic fields of surface plasmons traveling across dielectric materials, generated by having multiple electromagnets in flux at a resonant frequency specific to the material, magnetic shielding provides essential surface protection to ships. The shield severely reduces energy weapon effectiveness against any target, and can even noticeably hinder susceptible physical projectiles.  
\- Not touching energy field shields yet. The energy demands of my sole plausible idea; same premise as opposing wave lightsaber, just with some funny particle; would be unsustainable even briefly.

Warhammer  
Take a look at the magnetic shielding above, and tell me, did I just discover the foundation of powerweapon technology? Apply some amount of excess current to encourage coronal discharge across the entire weapon...


End file.
